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Essays Of Robert Louis Stevenson=
By
Robert Louis Stevenson
Contents
II - PERSONALITY AND
CHARACTER
III - STEVENSON'S VER=
SATILITY
ESSAYS OF ROBERT LOUIS
STEVENSON
I - ON THE ENJOYMENT =
OF
UNPLEASANT PLACES
VIII - BOOKS WHICH HA=
VE
INFLUENCED ME[1]
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, philoso=
phy,
and faith. In the Introduction, I have endeavoured to be as brief as possib=
le,
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 te=
acher.
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
classic 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 assistance in locating referenc=
es.
W.L.P., YALE UNIVERSITY, 13 February 1906.
=
Robert Louis Stevenson[1] was born at Edinburg=
h on
the 13 November 1850. His father, Thomas, and his grandfather, Robert, were
both distinguished light-house engineers; and the maternal grandfather, Bal=
four,
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 t=
he
family except himself; but although Death loves a shining mark, it took over
forty years of continuous practice for the grim archer to send the black ar=
row
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 constitution 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 pass=
ed
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 conclu=
sively
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 beco=
me 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, shr=
ewd observations,
and irrepressible humour. He contributed various articles to magazines, whi=
ch
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 consciousnes=
s 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
classic. This did not, however, bring him either a good income or general f=
ame.
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 know=
n 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 clima=
tes,
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 t=
ime
to take an active part in the politics of the island, and to give valuable
assistance in internal improvements.
The end came suddenly, exactly as he would have
wished it, and precisely as he had unconsciously predicted in the last radi=
ant,
triumphant sentences of his great essay, Aes Triplex. He had been at work o=
n a
novel, St. Ives, one of his poorer efforts, and whose composition grew stea=
dily
more and more distasteful, until he found that he was actually writing agai=
nst
the grain. He threw this aside impatiently, and with extraordinary energy a=
nd
enthusiasm began a new story, Weir of Hermiston, which would undoubtedly ha=
ve
been his masterpiece, had he lived to complete it. In luminosity of style, =
in nobleness
of conception, in the almost infallible choice of words, this astonishing
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 sudd=
enly
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 l=
ife,
a-tiptoe on the highest point of being, he passed at a bound on to the other
side. The noise of the mallet and chisel was scarcely quenched, the trumpet=
s 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 noble hymn,
"Let us begin and carry up this corpse, Singing together!=
Leave we the common crofts, t=
he
vulgar thorpes Each in its tethe=
r 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, C=
hafes
in the censer. Leave we=
the
unlettered plain its herd and crop; Seek we sepulture=
On a tall mountain... Thither our path lies; wind w=
e up
the heights: Wait
ye the warning! Our low=
life
was the level's and the night's; He's for the morn=
ing. Step to a tune, square chests,
erect each head, 'Ware the beholde=
rs! This is our master, famous, c=
alm
and dead, B=
orne
on our shoulders...
Here--here's his place, where meteors shoot clouds form, =
Lightnings
are loosened, Stars com=
e 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."
=
Stevenson had a motley personality, which is
sufficiently evident in his portraits. There was in him the Puritan, the ma=
n of
the world, and the vagabond. There was something too of the obsolete soldie=
r of
fortune, with the cocked and feathered hat, worn audaciously on one side. T=
here
was also a touch of the elfin, the uncanny--the mysterious charm that belon=
gs
to the borderland between the real and the unreal world--the element so
conspicuous and so indefinable in the art of Hawthorne. Writers so differen=
t as
Defoe, Cooper, Poe, and Sir Thomas Browne, are seen with varying degrees of
emphasis in his literary temperament. He was whimsical as an imaginative ch=
ild;
and everyone has noticed that he never grew old. His buoyant optimism was b=
ased
on a chronic experience of physical pain, for pessimists like Schopenhauer =
are
usually men in comfortable circumstances, and of excellent bodily health. H=
is
courage and cheerfulness under depressing circumstances are so splendid to
contemplate that some critics believe that in time his Letters may be regar=
ded
as his greatest literary work, for they are priceless in their unconscious
revelation of a beautiful soul.
Great as Stevenson was as a writer, he was sti=
ll
greater as a Man. So many admirable books have been written by men whose
character will not bear examination, that it is refreshing to find one
Master-Artist whose daily life was so full of the fruits of the spirit. As =
his romances
have brought pleasure to thousands of readers, so the spectacle of his chee=
rful
march through the Valley of the Shadow of Death is a constant source of com=
fort
and inspiration. One feels ashamed of cowardice and petty irritation after
witnessing the steady courage of this man. His philosophy of life is totally
different from that of Stoicism; for the Stoic says, "Grin and bear
it," and usually succeeds in doing neither. Stevenson seems to say,
"Laugh and forget it," and he showed us how to do both.
Stevenson had the rather unusual combination of
the Artist and the Moralist, both elements being marked in his writings to a
very high degree. The famous and oft-quoted sonnet by his friend, the late =
Mr. Henley,
gives a vivid picture:
"Thin-legged, thin-chested, slight unspeakably, Neat-footed and weak-fingered=
: in
his face-- Lean, large-=
honed,
curved of beak, and touched with race, Bold-lipped, rich-tinted, mut=
able
as the sea, The brown e=
yes
radiant with vivacity-- There
shown a brilliant and romantic grace, A spirit intense and rare, wi=
th
trace on trace Of passi=
on,
impudence, and energy. Valiant in velvet, light in r=
agged
luck, Most vain, most g=
enerous,
sternly critical, Buffo=
on and
poet, lover and sensualist; =
span>A
deal of Ariel, just a streak of Puck, Much Antony, of Hamlet most o=
f all,
And something of the Sh=
orter
Catechist."
He was not primarily a moral teacher, like
Socrates or Thomas Carlyle; nor did he feel within him the voice of a proph=
etic
mission. The virtue of his writings consists in their wholesome ethical
quality, in their solid health. Fresh air is often better for the soul than=
the
swinging of the priest's censer. At a time when the school of Zola was at i=
ts
climax, Stevenson opened the windows and let in the pleasant breeze. For the
morbid and unhealthy period of adolescence, his books are more healthful th=
an
many serious moral works. He purges the mind of uncleanness, just as he pur=
ged
contemporary fiction.
As Stevenson's correspondence with his friends
like Sidney Colvin and William Archer reveals the social side of his nature=
, so
his correspondence with the Unseen Power in which he believed shows that his
character was essentially religious. A man's letters are often a truer pict=
ure
of his mind than a photograph; and when these epistles are directed not to =
men
and women, but to the Supreme Intelligence, they form a real revelation of
their writer's heart. Nothing betrays the personality of a man more clearly
than his prayers, and the following petition that Stevenson composed for the
use of his household at Vailima, bears the stamp of its author.
"At Morning. The day returns and brings us the petty round of <=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> irritating concerns and dutie=
s.
Help us to play the man, help us to perform them with laughter an=
d kind
faces, let cheerfulness abound with industry. Give us to go
blithely on our business all this day, bring us to our resting beds =
weary
and content and undishonoured, and grant us in the end the g=
ift of
sleep."
=
Stevenson was a poet, a dramatist, an essayist,
and a novelist, besides writing many political, geographical, and biographi=
cal sketches.
As a poet, his fame is steadily waning. The tendency at first was to rank h=
im
too high, owing to the undeniable charm of many of the poems in the Child's
Garden of Verses. The child's view of the world, as set forth in these song=
s,
is often originally and gracefully expressed; but there is little in
Stevenson's poetry that is of permanent value, and it is probable that most=
of
it will be forgotten. This fact is in a way a tribute to his genius; for hi=
s greatness
as a prose writer has simply eclipsed his reputation as a poet.
His plays were failures. They illustrate the
familiar truth that a man may have positive genius as a dramatic writer, and
yet fail as a dramatist. There are laws that govern the stage which must be
obeyed; play-writing is a great art in itself, entirely distinct from liter=
ary composition.
Even Browning, the most intensely dramatic poet of the nineteenth century, =
was
not nearly so successful in his dramas as in his dramatic lyrics and romanc=
es.
His essays attracted at first very little
attention; they were too fine and too subtle to awaken popular enthusiasm. =
It
was the success of his novels that drew readers back to the essays, just as=
it
was the vogue of Sudermann's plays that made his earlier novels popular. On=
e has
only to read such essays, however, as those printed in this volume to reali=
se
not only their spirit and charm, but to feel instinctively that one is read=
ing
English Literature. They are exquisite works of art, written in an almost
impeccable style. By many judicious readers, they are placed above his work=
s of
fiction. They certainly constitute the most original portion of his entire
literary output. It is astonishing that this young Scotchman should have be=
en
able to make so many actually new observations on a game so old as Life. Th=
ere
is a shrewd insight into the motives of human conduct that makes some of th=
ese
graceful sketches belong to the literature of philosophy, using the word
philosophy in its deepest and broadest sense. The essays are filled with
whimsical paradoxes, keen and witty as those of Bernard Shaw, without having
any of the latter's cynicism, iconoclasm, and sinister attitude toward
morality. For the real foundation of even the lightest of Stevenson's works=
is
invariably ethical.
His fame as a writer of prose romances grows
brighter every year. His supreme achievement was to show that a book might =
be
crammed with the most wildly exciting incidents, and yet reveal profound and
acute analysis of character, and be written with consummate art. His tales =
have
all the fertility of invention and breathless suspense of Scott and Cooper,
while in literary style they immeasurably surpass the finest work of these =
two
great masters.
His best complete story, is, I think, Treasure
Island. There is a peculiar brightness about this book which even the most =
notable
of the later works failed to equal. Nor was it a trifling feat to make a bl=
ind
man and a one-legged man so formidable that even the reader is afraid of th=
em.
Those who complain that this is merely a pirate story forget that in art the
subject is of comparatively little importance, whereas the treatment is
everything. To say, as some do, that there is no difference between Treasure
Island and a cheap tale of blood and thunder, is equivalent to saying that
there is no difference between the Sistine Madonna and a chromo Virgin.
=
The Personal Essay is a peculiar form of
literature, entirely different from critical essays like those of Matthew
Arnold and from purely reflective essays, like those of Bacon. It is a spec=
ies
of writing somewhat akin to autobiography or firelight conversation; where =
the
writer takes the reader entirely into his confidence, and chats pleasantly =
with
him on topics that may be as widely apart as the immortality of the soul and
the proper colour of a necktie. The first and supreme master of this manner=
of
writing was Montaigne, who belongs in the front rank of the world's greatest
writers of prose. Montaigne talks endlessly on the most trivial subjects
without ever becoming trivial. To those who really love reading and have so=
me sympathy
with humanity, Montaigne's Essays are a "perpetual refuge and
delight," and it is interesting to reflect how far in literary fame th=
is
man, who talked about his meals, his horse, and his cat, outshines thousand=
s of
scholarly and talented writers, who discussed only the most serious themes =
in
politics and religion. The great English prose writers in the field of the
personal essay during the seventeenth century were Sir Thomas Browne, Thomas
Fuller, and Abraham Cowley, though Walton's Compleat Angler is a kindred wo=
rk.
Browne's Religio Medici, and his delightful Garden of Cyrus, old Tom Fuller=
's
quaint Good Thoughts in Bad Times and Cowley's charming Essays are admirable
examples of this school of composition. Burton's wonderful Anatomy of
Melancholy is a colossal personal essay. Some of the papers of Steele and
Addison in the Tatler, Guardian, and the Spectator are of course notable; b=
ut
it was not until the appearance of Charles Lamb that the personal essay rea=
ched
its climax in English literature. Over the pages of the Essays of Elia hove=
rs
an immortal charm--the charm of a nature inexhaustible in its humour and ki=
ndly
sympathy for humanity. Thackeray was another great master of the literary
easy-chair, and is to some readers more attractive in this attitude than as=
a
novelist. In America we have had a few writers who have reached eminence in
this form, beginning with Washington Irving, and including Donald G. Mitche=
ll,
whose Reveries of a Bachelor has been read by thousands of people for over
fifty years.
As a personal essayist Stevenson seems already=
to
belong to the first rank. He is both eclectic and individual. He brought to=
his
pen the reminiscences of varied reading, and a wholly original touch of fan=
tasy.
He was literally steeped in the gorgeous Gothic diction of the seventeenth
century, but he realised that such a prose style as illumines the pages of
William Drummond's Cypress Grove and Browne's Urn Burial was a lost art. He
attempted to imitate such writing only in his youthful exercises, for his o=
wn
genius was forced to express itself in an original way. All of his personal
essays have that air of distinction which attracts and holds one's attentio=
n as
powerfully in a book as it does in social intercourse. Everything that he h=
as
to say seems immediately worth saying, and worth hearing, for he was one of=
those
rare men who had an interesting mind. There are some literary artists who h=
ave
style and nothing else, just as there are some great singers who have nothi=
ng
but a voice. The true test of a book, like that of an individual, is whethe=
r or
not it improves upon acquaintance. Stevenson's essays reflect a personality
that becomes brighter as we draw nearer. This fact makes his essays not mer=
ely entertaining
reading, but worthy of serious and prolonged study.
[Note 1: His name was originally Robert Lewis
Balfour Stevenson. He later dropped the "Balfour" and changed the
spelling of "Lewis" to "Louis," but the name was always
pronounced "Lewis."]
=
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The following information is taken from Col.
Prideaux's admirable Bibliography of Stevenson, London, 1903. I have given =
the
titles and dates of only the more important publications in book form; and =
of
the critical works on Stevenson, I have included only a few of those that s=
eem
especially useful to the student and general reader. The detailed facts abo=
ut
the separate publications of each essay included in the present volume are
fully given in my notes.
=
WORKS
1878. An Inland Voyage. 1879. Travels with a
Donkey. 1881. Virginibus Puerisque. 1882. Familiar Studies of Men and Books=
. 1882.
New Arabian Nights. 1883. Treasure Island. 1885. Prince Otto. 1885. A Child=
's
Garden of Verses. 1885. More New Arabian Nights. The Dynamiter. 1886. Stran=
ge
Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. 1886. Kidnapped. 1887. The Merry Men. 1887.
Memories and Portraits. 1888. The Black Arrow. 1889. The Master of Ballantr=
ae.
(A few copies privately printed in 1888.=
) 1889.
The Wrong Box. 1890. Father Damien. 1892. Across the Plains. 1892. The Wrec=
ker.
1893. Island Nights' Entertainments. 1893. Catriona. 1894. The Ebb Tide. 18=
95.
Vailima Letters. 1896. Weir of Hermiston. 1898. St. Ives. 1899. Letters, Two
Volumes.
=
NOTE.
The Edinburgh Edition of the works, in twenty-eight volumes, is often refer=
red
to by bibliographers; it can now be obtained only at second-hand bookshops,=
or
at auction sales. The best complete edition on the market is the Thistle
Edition, in twenty-six volumes, including the Life and the Letters, publish=
ed
by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.
=
Life of Robert Louis Stevenson, by Graham Balf=
our.
1901. Two Volumes. This is the standard Life, and indispensable.
Robert Louis Stevenson, by Henry James, in Par=
tial
Portraits, 1894. Admirable criticism.
Robert Louis Stevenson, by Walter Raleigh. 189=
5.
An excellent appreciation of his character and work.
Robert Louis Stevenson: Personal Memories, by
Edmund Gosse, in Critical Kit-Kats, 1896. Entertaining gossip.
Stevenson's Shrine, The Record of a Pilgrimage=
, by
Laura Stubbs. 1903. Very interesting full-page illustrations.
(For further critical books and articles, which
are numerous, consult Prideaux.)
=
It is a difficult matter[1] to make the most of
any given place, and we have much in our own power. Things looked at patien=
tly
from one side after another generally end by showing a side that is beautif=
ul. A
few months ago some words were said in the Portfolio as to an "austere
regimen in scenery"; and such a discipline was then recommended as
"healthful and strengthening to the taste." That is the text, so =
to
speak, of the present essay. This discipline in scenery,[2] it must be
understood, is something more than a mere walk before breakfast to whet the
appetite. For when we are put down in some unsightly neighborhood, and
especially if we have come to be more or less dependent on what we see, we =
must
set ourselves to hunt out beautiful things with all the ardour and patience=
of
a botanist after a rare plant. Day by day we perfect ourselves in the art of
seeing nature more favourably. We learn to live with her, as people learn t=
o live
with fretful or violent spouses: to dwell lovingly on what is good, and shut
our eyes against all that is bleak or inharmonious. We learn, also, to come=
to
each place in the right spirit. The traveller, as Brantôme quaintly t=
ells
us, "fait des discours en soi pour se soutenir en chemin";[3] and
into these discourses he weaves something out of all that he sees and suffe=
rs
by the way; they take their tone greatly from the varying character of the
scene; a sharp ascent brings different thoughts from a level road; and the
man's fancies grow lighter as he comes out of the wood into a clearing. Nor
does the scenery any more affect the thoughts than the thoughts affect the =
scenery.
We see places through our humours as though differently colored glasses. We=
are
ourselves a term in the equation, a note of the chord, and make discord or
harmony almost at will. There is no fear for the result, if we can but
surrender ourselves sufficiently to the country that surrounds and follows =
us,
so that we are ever thinking suitable thoughts or telling ourselves some
suitable sort of story as we go. We become thus, in some sense, a centre of
beauty; we are provocative of beauty,[4] much as a gentle and sincere chara=
cter
is provocative of sincerity and gentleness in others. And even where there =
is
no harmony to be elicited by the quickest and most obedient of spirits, we =
may
still embellish a place with some attraction of romance. We may learn to go=
far
afield for associations, and handle them lightly when we have found them.
Sometimes an old print comes to our aid; I have seen many a spot lit up at =
once
with picturesque imaginations, by a reminiscence of Callot, or Sadeler, or =
Paul
Brill.[5] Dick Turpin[6] has been my lay figure for many an English lane. A=
nd I
suppose the Trossachs would hardly be the Trossachs[7] for most tourists if=
a
man of admirable romantic instinct had not peopled it for them with harmoni=
ous
figures, and brought them thither their minds rightly prepared for the
impression. There is half the battle in this preparation. For instance: I h=
ave
rarely been able to visit, in the proper spirit, the wild and inhospitable
places of our own Highlands. I am happier where it is tame and fertile, and=
not
readily pleased without trees.[8] I understand that there are some phases o=
f mental
trouble that harmonise well with such surroundings, and that some persons, =
by
the dispensing power of the imagination, can go back several centuries in
spirit, and put themselves into sympathy with the hunted, houseless, unsoci=
able
way of life that was in its place upon these savage hills. Now, when I am s=
ad,
I like nature to charm me out of my sadness, like David before Saul;[9] and=
the
thought of these past ages strikes nothing in me but an unpleasant pity; so
that I can never hit on the right humour for this sort of landscape, and lo=
se much
pleasure in consequence. Still, even here, if I were only let alone, and ti=
me
enough were given, I should have all manner of pleasure, and take many clear
and beautiful images away with me when I left. When we cannot think ourselv=
es
into sympathy with the great features of a country, we learn to ignore them,
and put our head among the grass for flowers, or pore, for long times toget=
her,
over the changeful current of a stream. We come down to the sermon in stone=
s,[10]
when we are shut out from any poem in the spread landscape. We begin to peep
and botanise, we take an interest in birds and insects, we find many things
beautiful in miniature. The reader will recollect the little summer scene in
Wuthering Heights[11]--the one warm scene, perhaps, in all that powerful,
miserable novel--and the great feature that is made therein by grasses and
flowers and a little sunshine: this is in the spirit of which I now speak. =
And,
lastly, we can go indoors; interiors are sometimes as beautiful, often more
picturesque, than the shows of the open air, and they have that quality of =
shelter
of which I shall presently have more to say.
With all this in mind, I have often been tempt=
ed
to put forth the paradox that any place is good enough to live a life in, w=
hile
it is only in a few, and those highly favoured, that we can pass a few hour=
s agreeably.
For, if we only stay long enough, we become at home in the neighbourhood.
Reminiscences spring up, like flowers, about uninteresting corners. We forg=
et
to some degree the superior loveliness of other places, and fall into a
tolerant and sympathetic spirit which is its own reward and justification.
Looking back the other day on some recollections of my own, I was astonishe=
d to
find how much I owed to such a residence; six weeks in one unpleasant count=
ry-side
had done more, it seemed, to quicken and educate my sensibilities than many
years in places that jumped more nearly with my inclination.
The country to which I refer was a level and
treeless plateau, over which the winds cut like a whip. For miles on miles =
it
was the same. A river, indeed, fell into the sea near the town where I resi=
ded;
but the valley of the river was shallow and bald, for as far up as ever I h=
ad
the heart to follow it. There were roads, certainly, but roads that had no
beauty or interest; for, as there was no timber, and but little irregularit=
y of
surface, you saw your whole walk exposed to you from the beginning: there w=
as
nothing left to fancy, nothing to expect, nothing to see by the wayside, sa=
ve
here and there an unhomely-looking homestead, and here and there a solitary,
spectacled stone-breaker;[12] and you were only accompanied, as you went
doggedly forward by the gaunt telegraph-posts and the hum of the resonant w=
ires
in the keen sea-wind. To one who has learned to know their song in warm
pleasant places by the Mediterranean, it seemed to taunt the country, and m=
ake
it still bleaker by suggested contrast. Even the waste places by the side of
the road were not, as Hawthorne liked to put it, "taken back to
Nature" by any decent covering of vegetation. Wherever the land had the
chance, it seemed to lie fallow. There is a certain tawny nudity of the Sou=
th,
bare sunburnt plains, coloured like a lion, and hills clothed only in the b=
lue
transparent air; but this was of another description--this was the nakednes=
s of
the North; the earth seemed to know that it was naked, and was ashamed and
cold.[13]
It seemed to be always blowing on that coast.
Indeed, this had passed into the speech of the inhabitants, and they saluted
each other when they met with "Breezy, breezy," instead of the
customary "Fine day" of farther south. These continual winds were=
not
like the harvest breeze, that just keeps an equable pressure against your f=
ace
as you walk, and serves to set all the trees talking over your head, or bri=
ng
round you the smell of the wet surface of the country after a shower. They =
were
of the bitter, hard, persistent sort, that interferes with sight and respir=
ation,
and makes the eyes sore. Even such winds as these have their own merit in
proper time and place. It is pleasant to see them brandish great masses of
shadow. And what a power they have over the colour of the world! How they
ruffle the solid woodlands in their passage, and make them shudder and whit=
en
like a single willow! There is nothing more vertiginous than a wind like th=
is
among the woods, with all its sights and noises; and the effect gets between
some painters and their sober eyesight, so that, even when the rest of their
picture is calm, the foliage is coloured like foliage in a gale.[14] There =
was
nothing, however, of this sort to be noticed in a country where there were =
no
trees and hardly any shadows, save the passive shadows and clouds or those =
of
rigid houses and walls. But the wind was nevertheless an occasion of pleasu=
re;
for nowhere could you taste more fully the pleasure of a sudden lull, or a
place of opportune shelter. The reader knows what I mean; he must remember =
how,
when he has sat himself down behind a dyke on a hill-side, he delighted to =
hear
the wind hiss vainly through the crannies at his back; how his body tingled=
all
over with warmth, and it began to dawn upon him, with a sort of slow surpri=
se,
that the country was beautiful, the heather purple, and the faraway hills a=
ll
marbled with sun and shadow. Wordsworth, in a beautiful passage[15] of the =
"Prelude,"
has used this as a figure for the feeling struck in us by the quiet by-stre=
ets
of London after the uproar of the great thoroughfares; and the comparison m=
ay
be turned the other way with as good effect:
"Meanwhile the roar continues, till at length, Escaped as from an enemy we t=
urn, Abruptly into some sequestered
nook, Still as a shelte=
r'd
place when winds blow loud!"
I remember meeting a man once, in a train, who
told me of what must have been quite the most perfect instance of this plea=
sure
of escape. He had gone up, one sunny, windy morning, to the top of a great =
cathedral
somewhere abroad; I think it was Cologne Cathedral, the great unfinished ma=
rvel
by the Rhine;[16] and after a long while in dark stairways, he issued at la=
st
into the sunshine, on a platform high above the town. At that elevation it =
was
quite still and warm; the gale was only in the lower strata of the air, and=
he
had forgotten it in the quiet interior of the church and during his long
ascent; and so you may judge of his surprise when, resting his arms on the
sunlit balustrade and looking over into the Place far below him, he saw the=
good
people holding on their hats and leaning hard against the wind as they walk=
ed.
There is something, to my fancy, quite perfect in this little experience of=
my
fellow-traveller's. The ways of men seem always very trivial to us when we =
find
ourselves alone on a church-top, with the blue sky and a few tall pinnacles,
and see far below us the steep roofs and foreshortened buttresses, and the =
silent
activity of the city streets; but how much more must they not have seemed s=
o to
him as he stood, not only above other men's business, but above other men's
climate, in a golden zone like Apollo's![17]
This was the sort of pleasure I found in the c=
ountry
of which I write. The pleasure was to be out of the wind, and to keep it in
memory all the time, and hug oneself upon the shelter. And it was only by t=
he
sea that any such sheltered places were to be found. Between the black worm=
-eaten
headlands there are little bights and havens, well screened from the wind a=
nd
the commotion of the external sea, where the sand and weeds look up into the
gazer's face from a depth of tranquil water, and the sea-birds, screaming a=
nd
flickering from the ruined crags, alone disturb the silence and the sunshin=
e.
One such place has impressed itself on my memory beyond all others. On a ro=
ck
by the water's edge, old fighting men of the Norse breed had planted a doub=
le castle;
the two stood wall to wall like semi-detached villas; and yet feud had run =
so
high between their owners, that one, from out of a window, shot the other a=
s he
stood in his own doorway. There is something in the juxtaposition of these =
two
enemies full of tragic irony. It is grim to think of bearded men and bitter
women taking hateful counsel together about the two hall-fires at night,[18]
when the sea boomed against the foundations and the wild winter wind was lo=
ose
over the battlements. And in the study we may reconstruct for ourselves some
pale figure of what life then was. Not so when we are there; when we are th=
ere
such thoughts come to us only to intensify a contrary impression, and
association is turned against itself.[19] I remember walking thither three
afternoons in succession, my eyes weary with being set against the wind, and
how, dropping suddenly over the edge of the down, I found myself in a new w=
orld
of warmth and shelter. The wind, from which I had escaped, "as from an
enemy,"[20] was seemingly quite local. It carried no clouds with it, a=
nd
came from such a quarter that it did not trouble the sea within view. The t=
wo castles,
black and ruinous as the rocks about them, were still distinguishable from
these by something more insecure and fantastic in the outline, something th=
at
the last storm had left imminent and the next would demolish entirely. It w=
ould
be difficult to render in words the sense of peace that took possession of =
me
on these three afternoons. It was helped out, as I have said, by the contra=
st.
The shore was battered and bemauled by previous tempests; I had the memory =
at
heart of the insane strife of the pigmies who had erected these two castles=
and
lived in them in mutual distrust and enmity, and knew I had only to put my =
head
out of this little cup of shelter to find the hard wind blowing in my eyes;=
and
yet there were the two great tracts of motionless blue air and peaceful sea
looking on, unconcerned and apart, at the turmoil of the present moment and=
the
memorials of the precarious past. There is ever something transitory and
fretful in the impression of a high wind under a cloudless sky; it seems to
have no root in the constitution of things; it must speedily begin to faint=
and
wither away like a cut flower. And on those days the thought of the wind and
the thought of human life came very near together in my mind. Our noisy yea=
rs
did indeed seem moments[21] in the being of the eternal silence: and the wi=
nd,
in the face of that great field of stationary blue, was as the wind of a
butterfly's wing. The placidity of the sea was a thing likewise to be
remembered. Shelley speaks of the sea as "hungering for calm,"[22]
and in this place one learned to understand the phrase. Looking down into t=
hese
green waters from the broken edge of the rock, or swimming leisurely in the
sunshine, it seemed to me that they were enjoying their own tranquillity; a=
nd
when now and again it was disturbed by a wind ripple on the surface, or the=
quick
black passage of a fish far below, they settled back again (one could fancy)
with relief.
On shore, too, in the little nook of shelter,
everything was so subdued and still that the least particular struck in me a
pleasurable surprise. The desultory crackling of the whin-pods[23] in the a=
fternoon
sun usurped the ear. The hot, sweet breath of the bank, that had been satur=
ated
all day long with sunshine, and now exhaled it into my face, was like the
breath of a fellow-creature. I remember that I was haunted by two lines of
French verse; in some dumb way they seemed to fit my surroundings and give
expression to the contentment that was in me, and I kept repeating to mysel=
f--
"Mon coeur est un luth suspendu,[24] Sitôt qu'on le touche, =
il
résonne."
I can give no reason why these lines came to m=
e at
this time; and for that very cause I repeat them here. For all I know, they=
may
serve to complete the impression in the mind of the reader, as they were ce=
rtainly
a part of it for me.
And this happened to me in the place of all ot=
hers
where I liked least to stay. When I think of it I grow ashamed of my own
ingratitude. "Out of the strong came forth sweetness."[25] There,=
in
the bleak and gusty North, I received, perhaps, my strongest impression of
peace. I saw the sea to be great and calm; and the earth, in that little
corner, was all alive and friendly to me. So, wherever a man is, he will fi=
nd something
to please and pacify him: in the town he will meet pleasant faces of men and
women, and see beautiful flowers at a window, or hear a cage-bird singing at
the corner of the gloomiest street; and for the country, there is no country
without some amenity--let him only look for it in the right spirit, and he =
will
surely find.
=
This article first appeared in the Portfolio, =
for
November 1874, and was not reprinted until two years after Stevenson's deat=
h,
in 1896, when it was included in the Miscellanies (Edinburgh Edition, Misce=
llanies,
Vol. IV, pp. 131-142). The editor of the Portfolio was the well-known art
critic, Philip Gilbert Hamerton (1834-1894), author of the Intellectual Life
(1873). Just one year before, Stevenson had had printed in the Portfolio his
first contribution to any periodical, Roads. Although The Enjoyment of
Unpleasant Places attracted scarcely any attention on its first appearance,=
and
has since become practically forgotten, there is perhaps no better essay am=
ong
his earlier works with which to begin a study of his personality, temperame=
nt,
and style. In its cheerful optimism this article is particularly characteri=
stic
of its author. It should be remembered that when this essay was first print=
ed,
Stevenson was only twenty-four years old.
[Note 1: It is a difficult matter, etc. The
appreciation of nature is a quite modern taste, for although people have al=
ways
loved the scenery which reminds them of home, it was not at all fashionable=
in England
to love nature for its own sake before 1740. Thomas Gray was the first pers=
on
in Europe who seems to have exhibited a real love of mountains (see his
Letters). A study of the development of the appreciation of nature before a=
nd
after Wordsworth (England's greatest nature poet) is exceedingly interestin=
g.
See Myra Reynolds, The Treatment of Nature in English Poetry between Pope a=
nd
Wordsworth (1896).]
[Note 2: This discipline in scenery. Note what=
is
said on this subject in Browning's extraordinary poem, Fra Lippo Lippi, vs.=
300-302.
"For, don't you mark? We're made so that we love First when we see them painte=
d,
things we have passed P=
erhaps
a hundred times nor cared to see."]
[Note 3: Brantôme quaintly tells us,
"fait des discours en soi pour se soutenir en chemin." Freely
translated, "the traveller talks to himself to keep up his courage on =
the
road." Pierre de Bourdeille, Abbé de Brantôme, (cir.
1534-1614), travelled all over Europe. His works were not published till lo=
ng
after his death, in 1665. Several complete editions of his writings in nume=
rous
volumes have appeared in the nineteenth century, one edited by the famous
writer, Prosper Mérimée.]
[Note 4: We are provocative of beauty. Compare
again, Fra Lippo Lippi, vs. 215 et seq.
"Or say there's beauty with no soul at all-- (I never saw it--put the case=
the
same--) If you get simp=
le
beauty and nought else, You
get about the best thing God invents: That's somewhat: and you'll f=
ind
the soul you have missed, Within yourself, when you ret=
urn
him thanks."]
[Note 5: Callot, or Sadeler, or Paul Brill. Jacques Callot was an eminent French artist of the XVII century, born at Na= ncy in 1592, died 1635. Matthaeus and Paul Brill were two celebrated Dutch painters. Paul, the younger brother of Matthaeus, was born about 1555, and = died in 1626. His development in landscape-painting was remarkable. Gilles Sadel= er, born at Antwerp 1570, died at Prague 1629, a famous artist, and nephew of t= wo well-known engravers. He was called the "Phoenix of Engraving."]<= o:p>
[Note 6: Dick Turpin. Dick Turpin was born in
Essex, England, and was originally a butcher. Afterwards he became a notori=
ous
highwayman, and was finally executed for horse-stealing, 10 April 1739. He =
and
his steed Black Bess are well described in W. H. Ainsworth's Rookwood, and =
in
his Ballads.]
[Note 7: The Trossachs. The word means literal=
ly,
"bristling country." A beautifully romantic tract, beginning
immediately to the east of Loch Katrine in Perth, Scotland. Stevenson's
statement, "if a man of admirable romantic instinct had not peopled it=
for
them with harmonious figures," refers to Walter Scott, and more
particularly to the Lady of the Lake (1810).]
[Note 8: I am happier where it is tame and
fertile, and not readily pleased without trees. Notice the kind of country =
he
begins to describe in the next paragraph. Is there really any contradiction=
in his
statements?]
[Note 9: Like David before Saul. David charmed
Saul out of his sadness, according to the Biblical story, not with nature, =
but
with music. See I Samuel XVI. 14-23. But in Browning's splendid poem, Saul
(1845), nature and music are combined in David's inspired playing.
"And I first played the tune all our sheep
know," etc.]
[Note 10: The sermon in stones. See the beginn=
ing
of the second act of As You Like It, where the exiled Duke says,
"And this our life exempt from public haunt Finds tongues in trees, books=
in
the running brooks, Ser=
mons
in stones and good in everything."
It is not at all certain that Shakspere used t=
he
word "sermons" here in the modern sense; he very likely meant mer=
ely
discourses, conversations.]
[Note 11: Wuthering Heights. The well-known no=
vel
(1847) by Emily Bronte (1818-1848) sister of the more famous Charlotte Bron=
te.
The "little summer scene" Stevenson mentions, is in Chapter XXIV.=
]
[Note 12: A solitary, spectacled stone-breaker=
. To
the pedestrian or cyclist, no difference between Europe and America is more
striking than the comparative excellence of the country roads. The roads in=
Europe,
even in lonely and remote districts, where one may travel for hours without
seeing a house, are usually in perfect condition, hard, white and absolutely
smooth. The slightest defect or abrasion is immediately repaired by one of
these stone-breakers Stevenson mentions, a solitary individual, his eyes
concealed behind large green goggles, to protect them from the glare and the
flying bits of stone.]
[Note 13: Ashamed and cold. An excellent examp=
le
of what Ruskin called "the pathetic fallacy."]
[Note 14: The foliage is coloured like foliage=
in
a gale. Cf. Tennyson, In Memoriam, LXXII:--
"With blasts that blow the poplar white."]
[Note 15: Wordsworth, in a beautiful passage. =
The
passage Stevenson quotes is in Book VII of The Prelude, called Residence in
London.]
[Note 16: Cologne Cathedral, the great unfinis=
hed
marvel by the Rhine. This great cathedral, generally regarded as the most
perfect Gothic church in the world, was begun in 1248, and was not complete=
d until
1880, seven years after Stevenson wrote this essay.]
[Note 17: In a golden zone like Apollo's. The
Greek God Apollo, later identified with Helios, the Sun-god. The twin tower=
s of
Cologne Cathedral are over 500 feet high, so that the experience described =
here
is quite possible.]
[Note 18: The two hall-fires at night. In
mediaeval castles, the hall was the general living-room, used regularly for
meals, for assemblies, and for all social requirements. The modern word &qu=
ot;dining-hall"
preserves the old significance of the word. The familiar expression,
"bower and hall," is simply, in plain prose, bedroom and sitting-=
room.]
[Note 19: Association is turned against itself=
. It
is seldom that Stevenson uses an expression that is not instantly transpare=
ntly
clear. Exactly what does he mean by this phrase?]
[Note 20: "As from an enemy." Alludi=
ng
to the passage Stevenson has quoted above, from Wordsworth's Prelude.]
[Note 21: Our noisy years did indeed seem mome=
nts.
A favorite reflection of Stevenson's, occurring in nearly all his serious e=
ssays.]
[Note 22: Shelley speaks of the sea as
"hungering for calm." This passage occurs in the poem Prometheus
Unbound, Act III, end of Scene 2.
"Behold the Nereids under the green sea-- Their wavering limbs borne on=
the
wind like stream, Their=
white
arms lifted o'er their streaming hair, With garlands pied and starry
sea-flower crowns,-- Hastening to grace their migh=
ty
Sister's joy. It is the
unpastured sea hungering for calm."]
[Note 23: Whin-pods. "Whin" is from =
the
Welsh çwyn, meaning "weed." Whin is gorse or furze, and the
sound Stevenson alludes to is frequently heard in Scotland.]
[Note 24: "Mon coeur est un luth
suspendu." These beautiful words are from the poet Béranger
(1780-1857). It is probable that Stevenson found them first not in the
original, but in reading the tales of Poe, for the "two lines of French
verse" that "haunted" Stevenson are quoted by Poe at the
beginning of one of his most famous pieces, The Fall of the House of Usher,
where, however, the third, and not the first person is used:--
"Son coeur est un luth suspendu; Sitôt qu'on le touche il
résonne."]
[Note 25: "Out of the strong came forth
sweetness." Alluding to the riddle propounded by Samson. See the book =
of
Judges, Chapter XIV.]
BOSWELL: "We grow weary when idle."<= o:p>
JOHNSON: "That is, sir, because others be=
ing
busy, we want company; but if we were idle, there would be no growing weary=
; we
should all entertain one another."[1]
Just now, when every one is bound, under pain =
of a
decree in absence convicting them of lèse-respectability,[2] to ente=
r on
some lucrative profession, and labour therein with something not far short =
of
enthusiasm, a cry from the opposite party who are content when they have
enough, and like to look on and enjoy in the meanwhile, savours a little of
bravado and gasconade.[3] And yet this should not be. Idleness so called, w=
hich
does not consist in doing nothing, but in doing a great deal not recognised=
in
the dogmatic formularies of the ruling class, has as good a right to state =
its
position as industry itself. It is admitted that the presence of people who
refuse to enter in the great handicap race for sixpenny pieces, is at once =
an
insult and a disenchantment for those who do. A fine fellow (as we see so m=
any)
takes his determination, votes for the sixpences, and in the emphatic
Americanism, "goes for" them.[4] And while such an one is ploughi=
ng
distressfully up the road, it is not hard to understand his resentment, whe=
n he
perceives cool persons in the meadows by the wayside, lying with a handkerc=
hief
over their ears and a glass at their elbow. Alexander is touched in a very
delicate place by the disregard of Diogenes.[5] Where was the glory of havi=
ng
taken Rome[6] for these tumultuous barbarians, who poured into the Senate
house, and found the Fathers sitting silent and unmoved by their success? I=
t is
a sore thing to have laboured along and scaled the arduous hilltops, and wh=
en
all is done, find humanity indifferent to your achievement. Hence physicists
condemn the unphysical; financiers have only a superficial toleration for t=
hose
who know little of stocks; literary persons despise the unlettered; and peo=
ple
of all pursuits combine to disparage those who have none.
But though this is one difficulty of the subje=
ct,
it is not the greatest. You could not be put in prison for speaking against=
industry,
but you can be sent to Coventry[7] for speaking like a fool. The greatest
difficulty with most subjects is to do them well; therefore, please to reme=
mber
this is an apology. It is certain that much may be judiciously argued in fa=
vour
of diligence; only there is something to be said against it, and that is wh=
at,
on the present occasion, I have to say. To state one argument is not
necessarily to be deaf to all others, and that a man has written a book of =
travels
in Montenegro, is no reason why he should never have been to Richmond.[8]
It is surely beyond a doubt that people should=
be
a good deal idle in youth. For though here and there a Lord Macaulay may es=
cape
from school honours[9] with all his wits about him, most boys pay so dear f=
or
their medals that they never afterwards have a shot in their locker, "=
and
begin the world bankrupt." And the same holds true during all the time=
a
lad is educating himself, or suffering others to educate him. It must have =
been
a very foolish old gentleman who addressed Johnson at Oxford in these words:
"Young man, ply your book diligently now, and acquire a stock of
knowledge; for when years come upon you, you will find that poring upon boo=
ks
will be but an irksome task." The old gentleman seems to have been una=
ware
that many other things besides reading grow irksome, and not a few become
impossible, by the time a man has to use spectacles and cannot walk without=
a stick.
Books are good enough in their own way, but they are a mighty bloodless
substitute for life. It seems a pity to sit, like the Lady of Shalott,[10]
peering into a mirror, with your back turned on all the bustle and glamour =
of
reality. And if a man reads very hard, as the old anecdote reminds us, he w=
ill
have little time for thoughts.
If you look back on your own education, I am s=
ure
it will not be the full, vivid, instructive hours of truantry that you regr=
et;
you would rather cancel some lack-lustre periods between sleep and waking[1=
1]
in the class. For my own part, I have attended a good many lectures in my t=
ime.
I still remember that the spinning of a top is a case of Kinetic Stability.=
I
still remember that Emphyteusis is not a disease, nor Stillicide[12] a crim=
e.
But though I would not willingly part with such scraps of science, I do not=
set
the same store by them as by certain other odds and ends that I came by in =
the
open street while I was playing truant. This is not the moment to dilate on
that mighty place of education, which was the favourite school of Dickens a=
nd
of Balzac,[13] and turns out yearly many inglorious masters in the Science =
of
the Aspects of Life. Suffice it to say this: if a lad does not learn in the
streets, it is because he has no faculty of learning. Nor is the truant alw=
ays
in the streets, for if he prefers, he may go out by the gardened suburbs in=
to
the country. He may pitch on some tuft of lilacs over a burn, and smoke
innumerable pipes to the tune of the water on the stones. A bird will sing =
in
the thicket. And there he may fall into a vein of kindly thought, and see
things in a new perspective. Why, if this be not education, what is? We may
conceive Mr. Worldly Wiseman[14] accosting such an one, and the conversatio=
n that
should thereupon ensue:--
"How, now, young fellow, what dost thou
here?"
"Truly, sir, I take mine ease."
"Is not this the hour of the class? and
should'st thou not be plying thy Book with diligence, to the end thou mayest
obtain knowledge?"
"Nay, but thus also I follow after Learni=
ng,
by your leave."
"Learning, quotha! After what fashion, I =
pray
thee? Is it mathematics?"
"No, to be sure."
"Is it metaphysics?"
"Nor that."
"Is it some language?"
"Nay, it is no language."
"Is it a trade?"
"Nor a trade neither."
"Why, then, what is't?"
"Indeed, sir, as a time may soon come for=
me
to go upon Pilgrimage, I am desirous to note what is commonly done by perso=
ns
in my case, and where are the ugliest Sloughs and Thickets on the Road; as
also, what manner of Staff is of the best service. Moreover, I lie here, by=
this
water, to learn by root-of-heart a lesson which my master teaches me to call
Peace, or Contentment."
Hereupon, Mr. Worldly Wiseman was much commoved
with passion, and shaking his cane with a very threatful countenance, broke
forth upon this wise: "Learning, quotha!" said he; "I would =
have
all such rogues scourged by the Hangman!"
And so he would go his way, ruffling out his
cravat with a crackle of starch, like a turkey when it spread its feathers.=
Now this, of Mr. Wiseman, is the common opinio=
n. A
fact is not called a fact, but a piece of gossip, if it does not fall into =
one
of your scholastic categories. An inquiry must be in some acknowledged dire=
ction,
with a name to go by; or else you are not inquiring at all, only lounging; =
and
the workhouse is too good for you. It is supposed that all knowledge is at =
the
bottom of a well, or the far end of a telescope. Sainte-Beuve,[15] as he gr=
ew
older, came to regard all experience as a single great book, in which to st=
udy
for a few years ere we go hence; and it seemed all one to him whether you
should read in Chapter xx., which is the differential calculus, or in Chapt=
er xxxix.,
which is hearing the band play in the gardens. As a matter of fact, an
intelligent person, looking out of his eyes and hearkening in his ears, wit=
h a
smile on his face all the time, will get more true education than many anot=
her
in a life of heroic vigils. There is certainly some chill and arid knowledg=
e to
be found upon the summits of formal and laborious science; but it is all ro=
und
about you, and for the trouble of looking, that you will acquire the warm a=
nd palpitating
facts of life. While others are filling their memory with a lumber of words,
one-half of which they will forget before the week be out, your truant may
learn some really useful art: to play the fiddle, to know a good cigar, or =
to
speak with ease and opportunity to all varieties of men. Many who have
"plied their book diligently," and know all about some one branch=
or
another of accepted lore, come out of the study with an ancient and owl-like
demeanour, and prove dry, stockish, and dyspeptic in all the better and
brighter parts of life. Many make a large fortune, who remain underbred and
pathetically stupid to the last. And meantime there goes the idler, who beg=
an
life along with them--by your leave, a different picture. He has had time to
take care of his health and his spirits; he has been a great deal in the op=
en
air, which is the most salutary of all things for both body and mind; and i=
f he
has never read the great Book in very recondite places, he has dipped into =
it
and skimmed it over to excellent purpose. Might not the student afford some
Hebrew roots, and the business man some of his half-crowns, for a share of =
the
idler's knowledge of life at large, and Art of Living? Nay, and the idler h=
as another
and more important quality than these. I mean his wisdom. He who has much
looked on at the childish satisfaction of other people in their hobbies, wi=
ll
regard his own with only a very ironical indulgence. He will not be heard a=
mong
the dogmatists. He will have a great and cool allowance for all sorts of pe=
ople
and opinions. If he finds no out-of-the-way truths, he will identify himself
with no very burning falsehood. His way took him along a by-road, not much =
frequented,
but very even and pleasant, which is called Commonplace Lane, and leads to =
the
Belvedere of Commonsense.[16] Thence he shall command an agreeable, if no v=
ery
noble prospect; and while others behold the East and West, the Devil and the
Sunrise, he will be contentedly aware of a sort of morning hour upon all
sublunary things, with an army of shadows running speedily and in many
different directions into the great daylight of Eternity. The shadows and t=
he generations,
the shrill doctors and the plangent wars,[17] go by into ultimate silence a=
nd
emptiness; but underneath all this, a man may see, out of the Belvedere
windows, much green and peaceful landscape; many firelit parlours; good peo=
ple
laughing, drinking, and making love as they did before the Flood or the Fre=
nch
Revolution; and the old shepherd[18] telling his tale under the hawthorn.
Extreme busyness, whether at school or college,
kirk or market, is a symptom of deficient vitality; and a faculty for idlen=
ess
implies a catholic appetite and a strong sense of personal identity. There =
is a
sort of dead-alive, hackneyed people about, who are scarcely conscious of
living except in the exercise of some conventional occupation. Bring these
fellows into the country, or set them aboard ship, and you will see how they
pine for their desk or their study. They have no curiosity; they cannot give
themselves over to random provocations; they do not take pleasure in the
exercise of their faculties for its own sake; and unless Necessity lays abo=
ut
them with a stick, they will even stand still. It is no good speaking to su=
ch
folk: they cannot be idle, their nature is not generous enough; and they pa=
ss
those hours in a sort of coma, which are not dedicated to furious moiling i=
n the
gold-mill. When they do not require to go to the office, when they are not
hungry and have no mind to drink, the whole breathing world is a blank to t=
hem.
If they have to wait an hour or so for a train, they fall into a stupid tra=
nce
with their eyes open. To see them, you would suppose there was nothing to l=
ook
at and no one to speak with; you would imagine they were paralysed or
alienated; and yet very possibly they are hard workers in their own way, and
have good eyesight for a flaw in a deed or a turn of the market. They have =
been
to school and college, but all the time they had their eye on the medal; th=
ey
have gone about in the world and mixed with clever people, but all the time=
they
were thinking of their own affairs. As if a man's soul were not too small to
begin with, they have dwarfed and narrowed theirs by a life of all work and=
no
play; until here they are at forty, with a listless attention, a mind vacan=
t of
all material of amusement, and not one thought to rub against another, while
they wait for the train. Before he was breeched, he might have clambered on=
the
boxes; when he was twenty, he would have stared at the girls; but now the p=
ipe
is smoked out, the snuffbox empty, and my gentleman sits bolt upright upon a
bench, with lamentable eyes. This does not appeal to me as being Success in
Life.
But it is not only the person himself who suff=
ers
from his busy habits, but his wife and children, his friends and relations,=
and
down to the very people he sits with in a railway carriage or an omnibus. P=
erpetual
devotion to what a man calls his business, is only to be sustained by perpe=
tual
neglect of many other things. And it is not by any means certain that a man=
's
business is the most important thing he has to do. To an impartial estimate=
it
will seem clear that many of the wisest, most virtuous, and most beneficent
parts that are to be played upon the Theatre of Life are filled by gratuito=
us
performers, and pass, among the world at large, as phases of idleness. For =
in
that Theatre not only the walking gentlemen, singing chambermaids, and dili=
gent
fiddlers in the orchestra, but those who look on and clap their hands from =
the
benches, do really play a part and fulfil important offices towards the gen=
eral
result. You are no doubt very dependent on the care of your lawyer and
stockbroker, of the guards and signalmen who convey you rapidly from place =
to
place, and the policemen who walk the streets for your protection; but is t=
here
not a thought of gratitude in your heart for certain other benefactors who =
set
you smiling when they fall in your way, or season your dinner with good
company? Colonel Newcome helped to lose his friend's money; Fred Bayham had=
an
ugly trick of borrowing shirts; and yet they were better people to fall amo=
ng
than Mr. Barnes. And though Falstaff was neither sober nor very honest, I t=
hink
I could name one or two long-faced Barabbases whom the world could better h=
ave
done without. Hazlitt mentions that he was more sensible of obligation to
Northcote,[19] who had never done him anything he could call a service, tha=
n to
his whole circle of ostentatious friends; for he thought a good companion e=
mphatically
the greatest benefactor. I know there are people in the world who cannot fe=
el
grateful unless the favour has been done them at the cost of pain and
difficulty. But this is a churlish disposition. A man may send you six shee=
ts
of letter-paper covered with the most entertaining gossip, or you may pass =
half
an hour pleasantly, perhaps profitably, over an article of his; do you think
the service would be greater, if he had made the manuscript in his heart's
blood, like a compact with the devil? Do you really fancy you should be mor=
e beholden
to your correspondent, if he had been damning you all the while for your
importunity? Pleasures are more beneficial than duties because, like the qu=
ality
of mercy,[20] they are not strained, and they are twice blest. There must
always be two to a kiss, and there may be a score in a jest; but wherever t=
here
is an element of sacrifice, the favour is conferred with pain, and, among
generous people, received with confusion. There is no duty we so much under=
rate
as the duty of being happy. By being happy, we sow anonymous benefits upon =
the
world, which remain unknown even to ourselves, or when they are disclosed,
surprise nobody so much as the benefactor. The other day, a ragged, barefoot
boy ran down the street after a marble, with so jolly an air that he set ev=
ery
one he passed into a good humour; one of these persons, who had been delive=
red
from more than usually black thoughts, stopped the little fellow and gave h=
im
some money with this remark: "You see what sometimes comes of looking
pleased." If he had looked pleased before, he had now to look both ple=
ased
and mystified. For my part, I justify this encouragement of smiling rather =
than
tearful children; I do not wish to pay for tears anywhere but upon the stag=
e;
but I am prepared to deal largely in the opposite commodity. A happy man or
woman is a better thing to find than a five-pound note. He or she is a
radiating focus of good-will; and their entrance into a room is as though
another candle had been lighted. We need not care whether they could prove =
the
forty-seventh proposition; they do a better thing than that, they practical=
ly demonstrate
the great Theorum of the liveableness of Life. Consequently, if a person ca=
nnot
be happy without remaining idle, idle he should remain. It is a revolutiona=
ry
precept; but thanks to hunger and the workhouse, one not easily to be abuse=
d;
and within practical limits, it is one of the most incontestable truths in =
the
whole Body of Morality. Look at one of your industrious fellows for a momen=
t, I
beseech you. He sows hurry and reaps indigestion; he puts a vast deal of
activity out to interest, and receives a large measure of nervous derangeme=
nt
in return. Either he absents himself entirely from all fellowship, and live=
s a
recluse in a garret, with carpet slippers and a leaden inkpot; or he comes
among people swiftly and bitterly, in a contraction of his whole nervous
system, to discharge some temper before he returns to work. I do not care h=
ow
much or how well he works, this fellow is an evil feature in other people's
lives. They would be happier if he were dead. They could easier do without =
his services
in the Circumlocution Office, than they can tolerate his fractious spirits.=
He
poisons life at the well-head. It is better to be beggared out of hand by a
scapegrace nephew, than daily hag-ridden by a peevish uncle.
And what, in God's name, is all this pother ab=
out?
For what cause do they embitter their own and other people's lives? That a =
man
should publish three or thirty articles a year, that he should finish or no=
t finish
his great allegorical picture, are questions of little interest to the worl=
d.
The ranks of life are full; and although a thousand fall, there are always =
some
to go into the breach. When they told Joan of Arc[21] she should be at home
minding women's work, she answered there were plenty to spin and wash. And =
so,
even with your own rare gifts! When nature is "so careless of the sing=
le
life,"[22] why should we coddle ourselves into the fancy that our own =
is
of exceptional importance? Suppose Shakespeare had been knocked on the head
some dark night in Sir Thomas Lucy's[23] preserves, the world would have wa=
gged
on better or worse, the pitcher gone to the well, the scythe to the corn, a=
nd
the student to his book; and no one been any the wiser of the loss. There a=
re
not many works extant, if you look the alternative all over, which are worth
the price of a pound of tobacco to a man of limited means. This is a soberi=
ng
reflection for the proudest of our earthly vanities. Even a tobacconist may,
upon consideration, find no great cause for personal vainglory in the phras=
e;
for although tobacco is an admirable sedative, the qualities necessary for
retailing it are neither rare nor precious in themselves. Alas and alas! you
may take it how you will, but the services of no single individual are indi=
spensable.
Atlas[24] was just a gentleman with a protracted nightmare! And yet you see
merchants who go and labour themselves into a great fortune and thence into
bankruptcy court; scribblers who keep scribbling at little articles until t=
heir
temper is a cross to all who come about them, as though Pharaoh should set =
the
Israelites to make a pin instead of a pyramid;[25] and fine young men who w=
ork
themselves into a decline,[26] and are driven off in a hearse with white pl=
umes
upon it. Would you not suppose these persons had been whispered, by the Mas=
ter
of the Ceremonies, the promise of some momentous destiny? and that this luk=
ewarm
bullet on which they play their farces was the bull's-eye and centrepoint of
all the universe? And yet it is not so. The ends for which they give away t=
heir
priceless youth, for all they know, may be chimerical or hurtful; the glory=
and
riches they expect may never come, or may find them indifferent; and they a=
nd
the world they inhabit are so inconsiderable that the mind freezes at the t=
hought.
This essay was first printed in the Cornhill
Magazine, for July 1877, Vol. XXXVI, pp. 80-86. It was next published in the
volume, Virginibus Puerisque, in 1881. Although this book contains some of =
the
most admirable specimens of Stevenson's style, it did not have a large sale,
and it was not until 1887 that another edition Appeared. The editor of the
Cornhill Magazine from 1871 to 1882 was Leslie Stephen (1832-1904), whose
kindness and encouragement to the new writer were of the utmost importance =
at
this critical time. That so grave and serious a critic as Leslie Stephen sh=
ould
have taken such delight in a jeu d'esprit like Idlers, is proof, if any wer=
e needed,
for the breadth of his literary outlook. Stevenson had been at work on this
article a year before its appearance, which shows that his Apology for Idle=
rs
demanded from him anything but idling. As Graham Balfour says, in his Life =
of
Stevenson, I, 122, "Except before his own conscience, there was hardly=
any
time when the author of the Apology for Idlers ever really neglected the ta=
sks
of his true vocation." In July 1876 he wrote to Mrs. Sitwell, "A
paper called 'A Defence of Idlers' (which is really a defence of R.L.S.) is=
in
a good way." A year later, after the publication of the article, he wr=
ote
(in August 1877) to Sidney Colvin, "Stephen has written to me apropos =
of
'Idlers,' that something more in that vein would be agreeable to his views.
From Stephen I count that a devil of a lot." It is noteworthy that this
charming essay had been refused by Macmillan's Magazine before Stephen acce=
pted
it for the Cornhill. (Life, I, 180).
[Note 1: The conversation between Boswell and
Johnson, quoted at the beginning of the essay, occurred on the 26 October 1=
769,
at the famous Mitre Tavern. In Stevenson's quotation, the word "all&qu=
ot;
should be inserted after the word "were" to correspond with the
original text, and to make sense. Johnson, though constitutionally lazy, wa=
s no
defender of Idlers, and there is a sly humour in Stevenson's appealing to h=
im
as authority. Boswell says in his Life, under date of 1780, "He would
allow no settled indulgence of idleness upon principle, and always repelled
every attempt to urge excuses for it. A friend one day suggested, that it w=
as
not wholesome to study soon after dinner. JOHNSON: 'Ah, sir, don't give way=
to
such a fancy. At one time of my life I had taken it into my head that it was
not wholesome to study between breakfast and dinner.'"]
[Note 2: Lèse-respectability. From the
French verb leser, to hurt, to injure. The most common employment of this v=
erb
is in the phrase "lèse-majesté," high treason.
Stevenson's mood here is like that of Lowell, when he said regretfully,
speaking of the eighteenth century, "Responsibility for the universe h=
ad
not then been invented." (Essay on Gray.)]
[Note 3: Gasconade. Boasting. The inhabitants =
of
Gascony (Gascogne) a province in the south-west of France, are proverbial n=
ot
only for their impetuosity and courage, but for their willingness to brag of
the possession of these qualities. Excellent examples of the typical Gascon=
in
literature are D'Artagnan in Dumas's Trois Mousquetaires (1844) and Cyrano =
in
Rostand's splendid drama, Cyrano de Bergerac (1897).]
[Note 4: In the emphatic Americanism, "go=
es
for" them. When Stevenson wrote this (1876-77), he had not yet been in
America. Two years later, in 1879, when he made the journey across the plai=
ns,
he had many opportunities to record Americanisms far more emphatic than the
harmless phrase quoted here, which can hardly be called an Americanism.
Murray's New English Dictionary gives excellent English examples of this
particular sense of "go for" in the years 1641, 1790, 1864, and
1882!]
[Note 5: Alexander is touched in a very delica=
te
place. Alluding to the famous interview between the young Alexander and the=
old
Diogenes, which took place at Corinth about 330 B.C. Alexander asked Diogen=
es
in what way he could be of service to him, and the philosopher replied gruf=
fly,
"By standing out of my sunshine." As a young man Diogenes had been
given to all excesses of dissipation; but he later went to the opposite ext=
reme
of asceticism, being one of the earliest and most striking illustrations of
"plain living and high thinking." The debauchery of his youth and=
the
privation and exposure of his old age did not deeply affect his hardy
constitution, for he is said to have lived to the age of ninety. In the
charming play by the Elizabethan, John Lyly, A moste excellente Comedie of
Alexander, Campaspe, and Diogenes (1584), the conversations between the man=
who
has conquered the world and the man who has overcome the world are highly e=
ntertaining.]
[Note 6: Where was the glory of having taken R=
ome.
This refers to the invasion by the Gauls about the year 389 B. C. A good
account is given in T. Arnold's History of Rome I, pp. 534 et seq.]
[Note 7: Sent to Coventry. The origin of this
proverb, which means of course, "to ostracise," probably dates ba=
ck
to 1647, when, according to Clarendon's History of the Great Rebellion, VI,
par. 83, Royalist prisoners were sent to the parliamentary stronghold of Co=
ventry,
in Warwickshire.]
[Note 8: Montenegro ... Richmond. Montenegro is
one of the smallest principalities in the world, about 3,550 square miles. =
It
is in the Balkan peninsula, to the east of the lower Adriatic, between Aust=
ro-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 Is=
lam
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 classes 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 Stevenso=
n as
an exception, was precocious enough to arouse the fears rather than the hop=
es
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-lustre periods between sle=
ep
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 droppin=
g of
water, as from the eaves of a house. These words, Emphyteusis and Stillicid=
e,
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 h=
im
in his chosen career.]
[Note 13: The favourite school of Dickens and = of Balzac. The great English novelist Dickens (1812-1870) and his greater Fren= ch contemporary Balzac (1799-1850), show in their works that their chief school was Life.]<= o:p>
[Note 14: Mr. Worldly Wiseman. The character in
Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (1678), who meets Christian soon after his sett=
ing
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 Sain=
te-Beuve
(1804-1869) is usually regarded today as the greatest literary critic who e=
ver 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 famo=
us
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 unu=
sual
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 assemblage, or in a bank.]
[Note 19: Colonel Newcome ... Fred Bayham ... =
Mr.
Barnes ... Falstaff ... Barabbases ... Hazlitt ... Northcote. Colonel Newco=
me,
the great character in Thackeray's The Newcomes (1854). Fred Bayham and Bar=
nes
Newcome are persons in the same story. One of the best essays on Falstaff i=
s the
one printed in the first series of Mr. Augustine Birrell's Obiter Dicta (18=
84).
This essay would have pleased Thackeray. One of the finest epitaphs in
literature is that pronounced 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 assistant in the studio=
of
Sir Joshua Reynolds. Stevenson projected a Life of Hazlitt, but later aband=
oned
the undertaking. (Life, I, 230.)]
[Note 20: The quality of mercy. See Portia's w=
onderful
speech in the Merchant of Venice, Act IV, Scene I.]
[Note 21: Joan of Arc. The famous inspired Fre=
nch
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 Shaks=
pere'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 noble 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 on=
e of
the most carefully written, though not one of the most characteristic of hi=
s 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 God and Nature then at strife, That Nature lends such evil d=
reams?
So careful of the type =
she
seems, So careless of t=
he
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 Outli=
nes
of the Life of Shakespeare. In 1879, at the first performance of As You Lik=
e 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 t=
he
Titans, who fought the Gods, and was condemned by Zeus to carry the weight =
of
the vault of heaven on his head and hands. In the sixteenth century the nam=
e Atlas
was given to a collection of maps by Mercator, probably because a picture of
Atlas had been commonly placed on the title-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, Ka=
iser,
etc. ... The Egyptian pyramids were regarded as one of the seven wonders of
ancient times, the great pyramid weighing over six million tons. The pyrami=
ds
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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style=3D'font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:16.0pt;line-height:115%;mso-fa=
reast-font-family:
Calibri'>III - AES TRIPLEX[1]<=
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style=3D'font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:16.0pt;line-height:115%;mso-fa=
reast-font-family:
Calibri'>
The changes wrought by death are in themselves=
so
sharp and final, and so terrible and melancholy in their consequences, that=
the
thing stands alone in man's experience, and has no parallel upon earth. It =
outdoes
all other accidents because it is the last of them. Sometimes it leaps sudd=
enly
upon its victims, like a Thug;[2] sometimes it lays a regular siege and cre=
eps
upon their citadel during a score of years. And when the business is done,
there is sore havoc made in other people's lives, and a pin knocked out by
which many subsidiary friendships hung together. There are empty chairs,
solitary walks, and single beds at night. Again in taking away our friends,
death does not take them away utterly, but leaves behind a mocking, tragica=
l,
and soon intolerable residue, which must be hurriedly concealed. Hence a wh=
ole
chapter of sights and customs striking to the mind, from the pyramids of Eg=
ypt
to the gibbets and dule trees[3] of mediaeval Europe. The poorest persons h=
ave
a bit of pageant going towards the tomb; memorial stones are set up over the
least memorable; and, in order to preserve some show of respect for what
remains of our old loves and friendships, we must accompany it with much gr=
imly
ludicrous ceremonial, and the hired undertaker parades before the door. All=
this,
and much more of the same sort, accompanied by the eloquence of poets, has =
gone
a great way to put humanity in error; nay, in many philosophies the error h=
as
been embodied and laid down with every circumstance of logic; although in r=
eal
life the bustle and swiftness, in leaving people little time to think, have=
not
left them time enough to go dangerously wrong in practice.
As a matter of fact, although few things are
spoken of with more fearful whisperings than this prospect of death, few ha=
ve
less influence on conduct under healthy circumstances. We have all heard of=
cities
in South America built upon the side of fiery mountains, and how, even in t=
his
tremendous neighbourhood, the inhabitants are not a jot more impressed by t=
he
solemnity of mortal conditions than if they were delving gardens in the
greenest corner of England. There are serenades and suppers and much gallan=
try
among the myrtles overhead; and meanwhile the foundation shudders underfoot,
the bowels of the mountain growl, and at any moment living ruin may leap
sky-high into the moonlight, and tumble man and his merry-making in the dus=
t.
In the eyes of very young people, and very dull old ones, there is somethin=
g indescribably
reckless and desperate in such a picture. It seems not credible that
respectable married people, with umbrellas, should find appetite for a bit =
of
supper within quite a long distance of a fiery mountain; ordinary life begi=
ns
to smell of high-handed debauch when it is carried on so close to a
catastrophe; and even cheese and salad, it seems, could hardly be relished =
in
such circumstances without something like a defiance of the Creator. It sho=
uld
be a place for nobody but hermits dwelling in prayer and maceration, or mer=
e born-devils
drowning care in a perpetual carouse.
And yet, when one comes to think upon it calml=
y,
the situation of these South American citizens forms only a very pale figure
for the state of ordinary mankind. This world itself, travelling blindly an=
d swiftly
in overcrowded space, among a million other worlds travelling blindly and
swiftly in contrary directions, may very well come by a knock that would se=
t it
into explosion like a penny squib. And what, pathologically looked at, is t=
he
human body with all its organs, but a mere bagful of petards? The least of
these is as dangerous to the whole economy as the ship's powder-magazine to=
the
ship; and with every breath we breathe, and every meal we eat, we are putti=
ng
one or more of them in peril. If we clung as devotedly as some philosophers=
pretend
we do to the abstract idea of life, or were half as frightened as they make=
out
we are, for the subversive accident that ends it all, the trumpets might
sound[4] by the hour and no one would follow them into battle--the blue-pet=
er
might fly at the truck,[5] but who would climb into a sea-going ship? Think=
(if
these philosophers were right) with what a preparation of spirit we should
affront the daily peril of the dinner-table: a deadlier spot than any
battlefield in history, where the far greater proportion of our ancestors h=
ave
miserably left their bones! What woman would ever be lured into marriage, so
much more dangerous than the wildest sea? And what would it be to grow old?=
For,
after a certain distance, every step we take in life we find the ice growing
thinner below our feet, and all around us and behind us we see our
contemporaries going through. By the time a man gets well into the seventie=
s,
his continued existence is a mere miracle; and when he lays his old bones in
bed for the night, there is an overwhelming probability that he will never =
see
the day. Do the old men mind it, as a matter of fact? Why, no. They were ne=
ver
merrier; they have their grog at night, and tell the raciest stories; they =
hear
of the death of people about their own age, or even younger, not as if it w=
as a
grisly warning, but with a simple childlike pleasure at having outlived som=
eone
else; and when a draught might puff them out like a fluttering candle, or a=
bit
of a stumble shatter them like so much glass, their old hearts keep sound a=
nd
unaffrighted, and they go on, bubbling with laughter, through years of man's
age compared to which the valley at Balaclava[6] was as safe and peaceful a=
s a
village cricket-green on Sunday. It may fairly be questioned (if we look to=
the
peril only) whether it was a much more daring feat for Curtius[7] to plunge
into the gulf, than for any old gentleman of ninety to doff his clothes and=
clamber
into bed.
Indeed, it is a memorable subject for
consideration, with what unconcern and gaiety mankind pricks on along the
Valley of the Shadow of Death. The whole way is one wilderness of snares, a=
nd
the end of it, for those who fear the last pinch, is irrevocable ruin. And =
yet
we go spinning through it all, like a party for the Derby.[8] Perhaps the r=
eader
remembers one of the humorous devices of the deified Caligula:[9] how he
encouraged a vast concourse of holiday-makers on to his bridge over Baiae[1=
0]
bay; and when they were in the height of their enjoyment, turned loose the
Praetorian guards[11] among the company, and had them tossed into the sea. =
This
is no bad miniature of the dealings of nature with the transitory race of m=
an.
Only, what a chequered picnic we have of it, even while it lasts! and into =
what
great waters, not to be crossed by any swimmer, God's pale Praetorian throw=
s us
over in the end!
We live the time that a match flickers; we pop=
the
cork of a ginger-beer bottle, and the earthquake swallows us on the instant=
. Is
it not odd, is it not incongruous, is it not, in the highest sense of human
speech, incredible, that we should think so highly of the ginger-beer, and
regard so little the devouring earthquake? The love of Life and the fear of
Death are two famous phrases that grow harder to understand the more we thi=
nk
about them. It is a well-known fact that an immense proportion of boat
accidents would never happen if people held the sheet in their hands instea=
d of
making it fast; and yet, unless it be some martinet of a professional marin=
er
or some landsman with shattered nerves, every one of God's creatures makes =
it fast.
A strange instance of man's unconcern and brazen boldness in the face of de=
ath!
We confound ourselves with metaphysical phrase=
s,
which we import into daily talk with noble inappropriateness. We have no id=
ea
of what death is, apart from its circumstances and some of its consequences=
to others;
and although we have some experience of living, there is not a man on earth=
who
has flown so high into abstraction as to have any practical guess at the
meaning of the Word life. All literature, from Job and Omar Khayyam to Thom=
as
Carlyle or Walt Whitman,[12] is but an attempt to look upon the human state
with such largeness of view as shall enable us to rise from the considerati=
on
of living to the Definition of Life. And our sages give us about the best s=
atisfaction
in their power when they say that it is a vapour, or a show, or made out of=
the
same stuff with dreams.[13] Philosophy, in its more rigid sense, has been at
the same work for ages; and after a myriad bald heads have wagged over the
problem, and piles of words have been heaped one upon another into dry and
cloudy volumes without end, philosophy has the honour of laying before us, =
with
modest pride, her contribution towards the subject: that life is a Permanen=
t Possibility
of Sensation.[14] Truly a fine result! A man may very well love beef, or
hunting, or a woman; but surely, surely, not a Permanent Possibility of Sen=
sation.
He may be afraid of a precipice, or a dentist, or a large enemy with a club=
, or
even an undertaker's man; but not certainly of abstract death. We may trick
with the word life in its dozen senses until we are weary of tricking; we m=
ay
argue in terms of all the philosophies on earth, but one fact remains true =
throughout--that
we do not love life, in the sense that we are greatly preoccupied about its
conservation; that we do not, properly speaking, love life at all, but livi=
ng.
Into the views of the least careful there will enter some degree of provide=
nce;
no man's eyes are fixed entirely on the passing hour; but although we have =
some
anticipation of good health, good weather, wine, active employment, love, a=
nd self-approval,
the sum of these anticipations does not amount to anything like a general v=
iew
of life's possibilities and issues; nor are those who cherish them most
vividly, at all the most scrupulous of their personal safety. To be deeply
interested in the accidents of our existence, to enjoy keenly the mixed tex=
ture
of human experience, rather leads a man to disregard precautions, and risk =
his
neck against a straw. For surely the love of living is stronger in an Alpin=
e climber
roping over a peril, or a hunter riding merrily at a stiff fence, than in a
creature who lives upon a diet and walks a measured distance in the interes=
t of
his constitution.
There is a great deal of very vile nonsense ta=
lked
upon both sides of the matter: tearing divines reducing life to the dimensi=
ons
of a mere funeral procession, so short as to be hardly decent; and melancho=
ly unbelievers
yearning for the tomb as if it were a world too far away. Both sides must f=
eel
a little ashamed of their performances now and again when they draw in their
chairs to dinner. Indeed, a good meal and a bottle of wine is an answer to =
most
standard works upon the question. When a man's heart warms to his viands, he
forgets a great deal of sophistry, and soars into a rosy zone of contemplat=
ion.
Death may be knocking at the door, like the Commander's statue;[15] we have=
something
else in hand, thank God, and let him knock. Passing bells are ringing all t=
he
world over. All the world over, and every hour,[16] someone is parting comp=
any
with all his aches and ecstasies. For us also the trap is laid. But we are =
so
fond of life that we have no leisure to entertain the terror of death. It i=
s a
honeymoon with us all through, and none of the longest. Small blame to us i=
f we
give our whole hearts to this glowing bride of ours, to the appetites, to h=
onour,
to the hungry curiosity of the mind, to the pleasure of the eyes in nature,=
and
the pride of our own nimble bodies.
We all of us appreciate the sensations; but as=
for
caring about the Permanence of the Possibility, a man's head is generally v=
ery
bald, and his senses very dull, before he comes to that. Whether we regard =
life
as a lane leading to a dead wall--a mere bag's end,[17] as the French say--=
or
whether we think of it as a vestibule or gymnasium, where we wait our turn =
and
prepare our faculties for some more noble destiny; whether we thunder in a
pulpit, or pule in little atheistic poetry-books, about its vanity and brev=
ity;
whether we look justly for years of health and vigour, or are about to mount
into a Bath-chair, as a step towards the hearse; in each and all of these v=
iews
and situations there is but one conclusion possible: that a man should stop=
his
ears against paralysing terror, and run the race that is set before him wit=
h a
single mind. No one surely could have recoiled with more heartache and terr=
or
from the thought of death than our respected lexicographer; and yet we know=
how
little it affected his conduct, how wisely and boldly he walked, and in wha=
t a
fresh and lively vein he spoke of life. Already an old man, he ventured on =
his
Highland tour; and his heart, bound with triple brass, did not recoil befor=
e twenty-seven
individual cups of tea.[18] As courage and intelligence are the two qualiti=
es
best worth a good man's cultivation, so it is the first part of intelligenc=
e to
recognise our precarious estate in life, and the first part of courage to be
not at all abashed before the fact. A frank and somewhat headlong carriage,=
not
looking too anxiously before, not dallying in maudlin regret over the past,
stamps the man who is well armoured for this world.
And not only well armoured for himself, but a =
good
friend and a good citizen to boot. We do not go to cowards for tender deali=
ng;
there is nothing so cruel as panic; the man who has least fear for his own =
carcass,
has most time to consider others. That eminent chemist who took his walks
abroad in tin shoes, and subsisted wholly upon tepid milk, had all his work=
cut
out for him in considerate dealings with his own digestion. So soon as prud=
ence
has begun to grow up in the brain, like a dismal fungus, it finds its first
expression in a paralysis of generous acts. The victim begins to shrink
spiritually; he develops a fancy for parlours with a regulated temperature,=
and
takes his morality on the principle of tin shoes and tepid milk. The care o=
f one
important body or soul becomes so engrossing, that all the noises of the ou=
ter
world begin to come thin and faint into the parlour with the regulated
temperature; and the tin shoes go equably forward over blood and rain. To be
overwise is to ossify; and the scruple-monger ends by standing stockstill. =
Now
the man who has his heart on his sleeve, and a good whirling weathercock of=
a
brain, who reckons his life as a thing to be dashingly used and cheerfully =
hazarded,
makes a very different acquaintance of the world, keeps all his pulses going
true and fast, and gathers impetus as he runs, until, if he be running towa=
rds
anything better than wildfire, he may shoot up and become a constellation in
the end. Lord look after his health, Lord have a care of his soul, says he;=
and
he has at the key of the position, and swashes through incongruity and peril
towards his aim. Death is on all sides of him with pointed batteries, as he=
is
on all sides of all of us; unfortunate surprises gird him round; mim-mouthe=
d friends[19]
and relations hold up their hands in quite a little elegiacal synod about h=
is
path: and what cares he for all this? Being a true lover of living, a fellow
with something pushing and spontaneous in his inside, he must, like any oth=
er
soldier, in any other stirring, deadly warfare, push on at his best pace un=
til
he touch the goal. "A peerage or Westminster Abbey!"[20] cried Ne=
lson
in his bright, boyish, heroic manner. These are great incentives; not for a=
ny
of these, but for the plain satisfaction of living, of being about their
business in some sort or other, do the brave, serviceable men of every nati=
on
tread down the nettle danger,[21] and pass flyingly over all the
stumbling-blocks of prudence. Think of the heroism of Johnson, think of that
superb indifference to mortal limitation that set him upon his dictionary, =
and
carried him through triumphantly until the end! Who, if he were wisely
considerate of things at large, would ever embark upon any work much more
considerable than a halfpenny post card? Who would project a serial novel,
after Thackeray and Dickens had each fallen in mid-course?[22] Who would fi=
nd
heart enough to begin to live, if he dallied with the consideration of deat=
h?
And, after all, what sorry and pitiful quibbli=
ng
all this is! To forego all the issues of living in a parlour with a regulat=
ed temperature--as
if that were not to die a hundred times over, and for ten years at a stretc=
h!
As if it were not to die in one's own lifetime, and without even the sad
immunities of death! As if it were not to die, and yet be the patient
spectators of our own pitiable change! The Permanent Possibility is preserv=
ed,
but the sensations carefully held at arm's length, as if one kept a
photographic plate in a dark chamber. It is better to lose health like a
spendthrift than to waste it like a miser. It is better to live and be done
with it, than to die daily in the sickroom. By all means begin your folio; =
even
if the doctor does not give you a year, even if he hesitates about a month,
make one brave push and see what can be accomplished in a week. It is not o=
nly
in finished undertakings that we ought to honour useful labour. A spirit go=
es
out of the man who means execution, which outlives the most untimely ending.
All who have meant good work with their whole hearts, have done good work,[=
23]
although they may die before they have the time to sign it. Every heart that
has beat strong and cheerfully has left a hopeful impulse behind it in the
world, and bettered the tradition of mankind. And even if death catch peopl=
e, like
an open pitfall, and in mid-career, laying out vast projects, and planning
monstrous foundations, flushed with hope, and their mouths full of boastful
language, they should be at once tripped up and silenced: is there not
something brave and spirited in such a termination? and does not life go do=
wn
with a better grace, foaming in full body over a precipice, than miserably
straggling to an end in sandy deltas? When the Greeks made their fine saying
that those whom the gods love die young,[24] I cannot help believing they h=
ad
this sort of death also in their eye. For surely, at whatever age it overta=
ke
the man, this is to die young. Death has not been suffered to take so much =
as
an illusion from his heart. In the hot-fit of life, a tip-toe on the highest
point of being, he passes at a bound on to the other side. The noise of the
mallet and chisel is scarcely quenched, the trumpets are hardly done blowin=
g,
when, trailing with him clouds of glory,[25] this happy-starred, full-blood=
ed
spirit shoots into the spiritual land.
=
NOTES
This essay, which is commonly (and justly)
regarded as Stevenson's masterpiece of literary composition, was first prin=
ted
in the Cornhill Magazine for April 1878, Vol. XXXVII, pp. 432-437. In 1881 =
it
was published in the volume Virginibus Puerisque. For the success of this
volume, as well as for its author's relations with the editor of the Cornhi=
ll,
see our note to An Apology for Idlers. It was this article which was select=
ed
for reprinting in separate form by the American Committee of the Robert Lou=
is
Stevenson Memorial Fund; to every subscriber of ten dollars or more, was gi=
ven
a copy of this essay, exquisitely printed at the De Vinne Press, 1898. Copi=
es
of this edition are now eagerly sought by book-collectors; five of them wer=
e taken
by the Robert Louis Stevenson Club of Yale College, consisting of a few
undergraduates of the class of 1898, who subscribed fifty dollars to the fu=
nd.
Stevenson's cheerful optimism was constantly
shadowed by the thought of Death, and in Aes Triplex he gives free rein to =
his
fancies on this universal theme.
[Note 1: The title, AEs Triplex, is taken from
Horace, aes triplex circa pectus, "breast enclosed by triple brass,&qu=
ot;
"aes" used by Horace as a "symbol of indomitable
courage."--Lewis's Latin Dictionary.]
[Note 2: Thug. This word, which sounds to-day =
so
slangy, really comes from the Hindoos (Hindustani thaaa, deceive). It is the
name of a religious order in India, ostensibly devoted to the worship of a =
goddess,
but really given to murder for the sake of booty. The Englishmen in India
called them Thugs, hence the name in its modern general sense.]
[Note 3: Pyramids ... dule trees. For pyramids,
see our note 25 of chapter II above... Dule trees. More properly spelled
"dool." A dool was a stake or post used to mark boundaries.]
[Note 4: The trumpets might sound. "For if
the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the
battle?" I Cor. XIV, 8.]
[Note 5: The blue-peter might-fly at the truck.
The blue-peter is a term used in the British navy and widely elsewhere; it =
is a
blue flag with a white square employed often as a signal for sailing. The w=
ord is
corrupted from Blue Repeater, a signal flag. Truck is a very small platform=
at
the top of a mast.]
[Note 6: Balaclava. A little port near Sebasto=
pol,
in the Crimea. During the Crimean War, on the 25 October 1854, occurred the
cavalry charge of some six hundred Englishmen, celebrated by Tennyson's uni=
versally
known poem, The Charge of the Light Brigade. It has recently been asserted =
that
the number reported as actually killed in this headlong charge referred to =
the
horses, not to the men.]
[Note 7: Curtius. Referring to the story of the
Roman youth, Metius Curtius, who in 362 B.C. leaped into a chasm in the For=
um,
in order to save his country. The chasm immediately closed over him, and Ro=
me
was saved. Although the truth of the story has naturally failed to survive =
the
investigations of historical critics, its moral inspiration has been effect=
ive
in many historical instances.]
[Note 8: Party for the Derby. Derby Day, which=
is
the occasion of the most famous annual running race for horses in the world,
takes place in the south of England during the week preceding Whitsunday. T=
he
race was founded by the Earl of Derby in 1780. It is now one of the greatest
holidays in England, and the whole city of London turns out for the event. =
It
is a great spectacle to see the crowd going from London and returning. The =
most
faithful description of the event, the crowds, and the interest excited, ma=
y be
found in George Moore's novel, Esther Waters (1894).]
[Note 9: The deified Caligula. Caius Caligula =
was
Roman Emperor from 37 to 41 A. D. He was brought up among the soldiers, who
gave him the name Caligula, because he wore the soldier's leather shoe, or =
half-boot,
(Latin caliga). Caligula was deified, but that did not prevent him from
becoming a madman, which seems to be the best way to account for his wanton
cruelty and extraordinary caprices.]
[Note 10: Baiae was a small town on the Campan=
ian
Coast, ten miles from Naples. It was a favorite summer resort of the Roman =
aristocracy.]
[Note 11: The Praetorian Guard was the body-gu=
ard
of the Roman emperors. The incident Stevenson speaks of may be found in
Tacitus.]
[Note 12: Job ... Walt Whitman. The book of Jo=
b is
usually regarded as the most poetical work in the Bible, even exceeding Psa=
lms
and Isaiah in its splendid imaginative language and extraordinary figures of
speech. For a literary study of it, the student is recommended to Professor
Moulton's edition. Omar Khayyam was a Persian poet of mediaeval times, who
became known to English readers through the beautiful paraphrase of some of=
his
stanzas by Edward Fitzgerald, in 1859. If any one will take the trouble to =
compare
a literal prose rendering of Omar (as in N.H. Dole's variorum edition) with=
the
version by Fitzgerald, he will speedily see that the power and beauty of the
poem is due far more to the skill of "Old Fitz" than to the origi=
nal.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) was perhaps the foremost writer of English prose=
in
the nineteenth century. Although a consummate literary artist, he was even =
more
influential as a moral tonic. His philosophy and that of Omar represent as =
wide
a contrast as could easily be found. Walt Whitman, the strange American poe=
t (1819-1892),
whose famous Leaves of Grass (1855) excited an uproar in America, and gave =
the
author a much more serious reputation in Europe. Stevenson's interest in him
was genuine, but not partisan, and his essay, The Gospel According to Walt
Whitman (The New Quarterly Magazine, Oct. 1878), is perhaps the most judici=
ous
appreciation in the English language of this singular poet. Job, Omar Khayy=
am,
Carlyle and Whitman, taken together, certainly give a curious collection of=
what
the Germans call Weltanschauungen.]
[Note 13: A vapour, or a show, or made out of =
the
same stuff with dreams. For constant comparisons of life with a vapour or a
show, see Quarles's Emblems (1635), though these conventional figures may b=
e found
thousands of times in general literature. The latter part of the sentence
refers to the Tempest, Act IV, Scene I.
=
"We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our
little life Is rounded =
with a
sleep."]
[Note 14: Permanent Possibility of Sensation.
"Matter then, may be defined, a Permanent Possibility of
Sensation."--John Stuart Mill, Examination of Sir William Hamilton's
Philosophy, Vol. I. Chap. XI.]
[Note 15: Like the Commander's Statue. In the
familiar story of Don Juan, where the audacious rake accepts the Commander's
invitation to supper. For treatments of this theme, see Molière's pl=
ay
Don Juan, or Mozart's opera Don Giovanni; see also Bernard Shaw's paradoxic=
al play,
Man and Superman.... We have something else in hand, thank God, and let him
knock. It is possible that Stevenson's words here are an unconscious
reminiscence of Colley Cibber's letter to the novelist Richardson. This
unabashed old profligate celebrated the Christmas Day of his eightieth year=
by
writing to the apostle of domestic virtue in the following strain: "Th=
ough
Death has been cooling his heels at my door these three weeks, I have not h=
ad
time to see him. The daily conversation of my friends has kept me so agreea=
bly alive,
that I have not passed my time better a great while. If you have a mind to =
make
one of us, I will order Death to come another day."]
[Note 16: All the world over, and every hour. =
He
might truthfully have said, "every second."]
[Note 17: A mere bag's end, as the French say.=
A
cul de sac.]
[Note 18: Our respected lexicographer ... High=
land
tour ... triple brass ... twenty-seven individual cups of tea. Dr. Samuel
Johnson's Dictionary appeared in 1755. For his horror of death, his fondness
for tea, and his Highland tour with Boswell, see the latter's Life of Johns=
on;
consult the late Dr. Hill's admirable index in his edition of the Life.]
[Note 19: Mim-mouthed friends. See J. Wright's
English Dialect Dictionary. "Mim-mouthed" means "affectedly =
prim
or proper in speech."]
[Note 20: "A peerage or Westminster
Abbey!" Horatio Nelson (1758-1805), the most famous admiral in England=
's
naval history, who won the great battle of Trafalgar and lost his life in t=
he
moment of victory. Nelson was as ambitious as he was brave, and his cry tha=
t Stevenson
quotes was characteristic.]
[Note 21: Tread down the nettle danger. Hotspu=
r's
words in King Henry IV, Part I, Act II, Sc. 3. "Out of this nettle,
danger, we pluck this flower, safety."]
[Note 22: After Thackeray and Dickens had each
fallen in mid-course? Thackeray and Dickens, dying in 1863 and in 1870
respectively, left unfinished Denis Duval and The Mystery of Edwin Drood.
Stevenson himself left unfinished what would in all probability have been h=
is unquestioned
masterpiece, Weir of Hermiston.]
[Note 23: All who have meant good work with th=
eir
whole hearts, have done good work. See Browning's inspiring poem, Rabbi Ben
Ezra, XXIII, XXIV, XXV:--
&=
nbsp;
"Not on the vulgar mass Called
"work," must sentence pass, Things done, which took the e=
ye and
had the price; O'er which, from =
level
stand, The =
low
world laid its hand, Fo=
und
straightway to its mind, could value in a trice:
&=
nbsp;
But all, the world's coarse thumb And finger failed=
to
plumb, So passed in mak=
ing up
the main account; All instincts imm=
ature,
All purpose=
s unsure,
That weighed not as his=
work,
yet swelled the man's amount:
&=
nbsp;
Thoughts hardly to be packed Into a narrow act=
, Fancies that broke through la=
nguage
and escaped; All
I could never be, All, men ignored =
in me,
This, I was worth to Go=
d,
whose wheel the pitcher shaped."]
[Note 24: Whom the Gods love die young. "= Quem di diligunt adolescens moritur."--Plautus, Bacchides, Act IV, Sc. 7.]<= o:p>
[Note 25: Trailing with him clouds of glory. T=
his
passage, from Wordsworth's Ode on the Intimations of Immortality (1807), wa=
s a favorite
one with Stevenson, and he quotes it several times in various essays.]
=
I
"Sir, we had a good talk."[1]--JOHNS=
ON.
"As we must account[2] for every idle wor=
d,
so we must for every idle silence."--FRANKLIN.
There can be no fairer ambition than to excel =
in
talk; to be affable, gay, ready, clear and welcome; to have a fact, a thoug=
ht,
or an illustration, pat to every subject; and not only to cheer the flight =
of
time among our intimates, but bear our part in that great international
congress, always sitting, where public wrongs are first declared, public er=
rors
first corrected, and the course of public opinion shaped, day by day, a lit=
tle
nearer to the right. No measure comes before Parliament but it has been long
ago prepared by the grand jury of the talkers; no book is written that has =
not
been largely composed by their assistance. Literature in many of its branch=
es
is no other than the shadow of good talk; but the imitation falls far short=
of
the original in life, freedom and effect. There are always two to a talk,
giving and taking, comparing experience and according conclusions. Talk is
fluid, tentative, continually "in further search and progress;" w=
hile
written words remain fixed, become idols even to the writer, found wooden
dogmatisms, and preserve flies of obvious error in the amber[3] of the trut=
h.
Last and chief, while literature, gagged with linsey-woolsey, can only deal
with a fraction of the life of man, talk goes fancy free[4] and may call a
spade a spade.[5] It cannot, even if it would, become merely aesthetic or
merely classical like literature. A jest intervenes, the solemn humbug is
dissolved in laughter, and speech runs forth out of the contemporary groove
into the open fields of nature, cheery and cheering, like schoolboys out of=
school.
And it is in talk alone that we can learn our period and ourselves. In shor=
t,
the first duty of a man is to speak; that is his chief business in this wor=
ld;
and talk, which is the harmonious speech of two or more, is by far the most
accessible of pleasures. It costs nothing in money; it is all profit; it
completes our education, founds and fosters our friendships, and can be enj=
oyed
at any age and in almost any state of health.
The spice of life is battle; the friendliest
relations are still a kind of contest; and if we would not forego all that =
is
valuable in our lot, we must continually face some other person, eye to eye,
and wrestle a fall whether in love or enmity. It is still by force of body,=
or power
of character or intellect; that we attain to worthy pleasures. Men and women
contend for each other in the lists of love, like rival mesmerists; the act=
ive
and adroit decide their challenges in the sports of the body; and the seden=
tary
sit down to chess or conversation. All sluggish and pacific pleasures are, =
to
the same degree, solitary and selfish; and every durable bond between human=
beings
is founded in or heightened by some element of competition. Now, the relati=
on
that has the least root in matter is undoubtedly that airy one of friendshi=
p;
and hence, I suppose, it is that good talk most commonly arises among frien=
ds.
Talk is, indeed, both the scene and instrument of friendship. It is in talk
alone that the friends can measure strength, and enjoy that amicable counte=
r-assertion
of personality which is the gauge of relations and the sport of life.
A good talk is not to be had for the asking.
Humours must first be accorded in a kind of overture or prologue; hour, com=
pany
and circumstance be suited; and then, at a fit juncture, the subject, the q=
uarry
of two heated minds, spring up like a deer out of the wood. Not that the ta=
lker
has any of the hunter's pride, though he has all and more than all his ardo=
ur.
The genuine artist follows the stream of conversation as an angler follows =
the
windings of a brook, not dallying where he fails to "kill." He tr=
usts
implicitly to hazard; and he is rewarded by continual variety, continual
pleasure, and those changing prospects of the truth that are the best of ed=
ucation.
There is nothing in a subject, so called, that we should regard it as an id=
ol,
or follow it beyond the promptings of desire. Indeed, there are few subject=
s;
and so far as they are truly talkable, more than the half of them may be
reduced to three: that I am I, that you are you, and that there are other
people dimly understood to be not quite the same as either. Wherever talk m=
ay
range, it still runs half the time on these eternal lines. The theme being =
set,
each plays on himself as on an instrument; asserts and justifies himself;
ransacks his brain for instances and opinions, and brings them forth
new-minted, to his own surprise and the admiration of his adversary. All
natural talk is a festival of ostentation; and by the laws of the game each
accepts and fans the vanity of the other. It is from that reason that we ve=
nture
to lay ourselves so open, that we dare to be so warmly eloquent, and that we
swell in each other's eyes to such a vast proportion. For talkers, once
launched, begin to overflow the limits of their ordinary selves, tower up to
the height of their secret pretensions, and give themselves out for the her=
oes,
brave, pious, musical and wise, that in their most shining moments they asp=
ire
to be. So they weave for themselves with words and for a while inhabit a pa=
lace
of delights, temple at once and theatre, where they fill the round of the
world's dignities, and feast with the gods, exulting in Kudos. And when the
talk is over, each goes his way, still flushed with vanity and admiration, =
still
trailing clouds of glory;[6] each declines from the height of his ideal org=
ie,
not in a moment, but by slow declension. I remember, in the entr'acte of an
afternoon performance, coming forth into the sunshine, in a beautiful green=
, gardened
corner of a romantic city; and as I sat and smoked, the music moving in my
blood, I seemed to sit there and evaporate The Flying Dutchman[7] (for it w=
as
that I had been hearing) with a wonderful sense of life, warmth, well-being=
and
pride; and the noises of the city, voices, bells and marching feet, fell
together in my ears like a symphonious orchestra. In the same way, the
excitement of a good talk lives for a long while after in the blood, the he=
art
still hot within you, the brain still simmering, and the physical earth
swimming around you with the colours of the sunset.
Natural talk, like ploughing, should turn up a
large surface of life, rather than dig mines into geological strata. Masses=
of
experience, anecdote, incident, cross-lights, quotation, historical instanc=
es,
the whole flotsam and jetsam of two minds forced in and in upon the matter =
in
hand from every point of the compass, and from every degree of mental eleva=
tion
and abasement--these are the material with which talk is fortified, the foo=
d on
which the talkers thrive. Such argument as is proper to the exercise should
still be brief and seizing. Talk should proceed by instances; by the apposi=
te,
not the expository. It should keep close along the lines of humanity, near =
the
bosoms and businesses of men, at the level where history, fiction and
experience intersect and illuminate each other. I am I, and You are You, wi=
th
all my heart; but conceive how these lean propositions change and brighten =
when,
instead of words, the actual you and I sit cheek by jowl, the spirit housed=
in
the live body, and the very clothes uttering voices to corroborate the stor=
y in
the face. Not less surprising is the change when we leave off to speak of
generalities--the bad, the good, the miser, and all the characters of
Theophrastus[8]--and call up other men, by anecdote or instance, in their v=
ery
trick and feature; or trading on a common knowledge, toss each other famous
names, still glowing with the hues of life. Communication is no longer by
words, but by the instancing of whole biographies, epics, systems of philos=
ophy,
and epochs of history, in bulk. That which is understood excels that which =
is
spoken in quantity and quality alike; ideas thus figured and personified,
change hands, as we may say, like coin; and the speakers imply without effo=
rt
the most obscure and intricate thoughts. Strangers who have a large common
ground of reading will, for this reason, come the sooner to the grapple of
genuine converse. If they know Othello and Napoleon, Consuelo and Clarissa
Harlowe, Vautrin and Steenie Steenson,[9] they can leave generalities and b=
egin
at once to speak by figures.
Conduct and art are the two subjects that arise
most frequently and that embrace the widest range of facts. A few pleasures
bear discussion for their own sake, but only those which are most social or=
most
radically human; and even these can only be discussed among their devotees.=
A
technicality is always welcome to the expert, whether in athletics, art or =
law;
I have heard the best kind of talk on technicalities from such rare and hap=
py
persons as both know and love their business. No human being[10] ever spoke=
of
scenery for above two minutes at a time, which makes me suspect we hear too
much of it in literature. The weather is regarded as the very nadir and sco=
ff
of conversational topics. And yet the weather, the dramatic element in scen=
ery,
is far more tractable in language, and far more human both in import and
suggestion than the stable features of the landscape. Sailors and shepherds,
and the people generally of coast and mountain, talk well of it; and it is
often excitingly presented in literature. But the tendency of all living ta=
lk
draws it back and back into the common focus of humanity. Talk is a creatur=
e of
the street and market-place, feeding on gossip; and its last resort is stil=
l in
a discussion on morals. That is the heroic form of gossip; heroic in virtue=
of
its high pretensions; but still gossip, because it turns on personalities. =
You
can keep no men long, nor Scotchmen[11] at all, off moral or theological
discussion. These are to all the world what law is to lawyers; they are
everybody's technicalities; the medium through which all consider life, and=
the
dialect in which they express their judgments. I knew three young men who
walked together daily for some two months in a solemn and beautiful forest =
and
in cloudless summer weather; daily they talked with unabated zest, and yet
scarce wandered that whole time beyond two subjects--theology and love. And
perhaps neither a court of love[12] nor an assembly of divines would have g=
ranted
their premises or welcomed their conclusions.
Conclusions, indeed, are not often reached by =
talk
any more than by private thinking. That is not the profit. The profit is in=
the
exercise, and above all in the experience; for when we reason at large on a=
ny
subject, we review our state and history in life. From time to time, howeve=
r,
and specially, I think, in talking art, talk becomes effective, conquering =
like
war, widening the boundaries of knowledge like an exploration. A point aris=
es;
the question takes a problematical, a baffling, yet a likely air; the talke=
rs
begin to feel lively presentiments of some conclusion near at hand; towards
this they strive with emulous ardour, each by his own path, and struggling =
for
first utterance; and then one leaps upon the summit of that matter with a
shout, and almost at the same moment the other is beside him; and behold th=
ey
are agreed. Like enough, the progress is illusory, a mere cat's cradle havi=
ng
been wound and unwound out of words. But the sense of joint discovery is no=
ne
the less giddy and inspiring. And in the life of the talker such triumphs,
though imaginary, are neither few nor far apart; they are attained with spe=
ed
and pleasure, in the hour of mirth; and by the nature of the process, they =
are
always worthily shared.
There is a certain attitude, combative at once=
and
deferential, eager to fight yet most averse to quarrel, which marks out at =
once
the talkable man. It is not eloquence, not fairness, not obstinacy, but a c=
ertain
proportion of all of these that I love to encounter in my amicable adversar=
ies.
They must not be pontiffs holding doctrine, but huntsmen questing after
elements of truth. Neither must they be boys to be instructed, but
fellow-teachers with whom I may, wrangle and agree on equal terms. We must
reach some solution, some shadow of consent; for without that, eager talk
becomes a torture. But we do not wish to reach it cheaply, or quickly, or
without the tussle and effort wherein pleasure lies.
The very best talker, with me, is one whom I s=
hall
call Spring-Heel'd Jack.[13] I say so, because I never knew anyone who ming=
led
so largely the possible ingredients of converse. In the Spanish proverb, th=
e fourth
man necessary to compound a salad, is a madman to mix it: Jack is that madm=
an.
I know not what is more remarkable; the insane lucidity of his conclusions,=
the
humorous eloquence of his language, or his power of method, bringing the wh=
ole
of life into the focus of the subject treated, mixing the conversational sa=
lad
like a drunken god. He doubles like the serpent, changes and flashes like t=
he
shaken kaleidoscope, transmigrates bodily into the views of others, and so,=
in
the twinkling of an eye and with a heady rapture, turns questions inside out
and flings them empty before you on the ground, like a triumphant conjuror.=
It
is my common practice when a piece of conduct puzzles me, to attack it in t=
he
presence of Jack with such grossness, such partiality and such wearing
iteration, as at length shall spur him up in its defence. In a moment he
transmigrates, dons the required character, and with moonstruck philosophy
justifies the act in question. I can fancy nothing to compare with the vim =
of
these impersonations, the strange scale of language, flying from Shakespear=
e to
Kant, and from Kant to Major Dyngwell[14]--
"As fast as a musician scatters sounds Out of an instrument--"<= o:p>
the sudden, sweeping generalisations, the absu=
rd
irrelevant particularities, the wit, wisdom, folly, humour, eloquence and
bathos, each startling in its kind, and yet all luminous in the admired dis=
order
of their combination. A talker of a different calibre, though belonging to =
the
same school, is Burly.[15] Burly is a man of great presence; he commands a
larger atmosphere, gives the impression of a grosser mass of character than
most men. It has been said of him that his presence could be felt in a room=
you
entered blindfold; and the same, I think, has been said of other powerful
constitutions condemned to much physical inaction. There is something
boisterous and piratic in Burly's manner of talk which suits well enough wi=
th
this impression. He will roar you down, he will bury his face in his hands,=
he
will undergo passions of revolt and agony; and meanwhile his attitude of mi=
nd
is really both conciliatory and receptive; and after Pistol has been
out-Pistol'd,[16] and the welkin rung for hours, you begin to perceive a
certain subsidence in these spring torrents, points of agreement issue, and=
you
end arm-in-arm, and in a glow of mutual admiration. The outcry only serves =
to
make your final union the more unexpected and precious. Throughout there has
been perfect sincerity, perfect intelligence, a desire to hear although not
always to listen, and an unaffected eagerness to meet concessions. You have=
, with
Burly, none of the dangers that attend debate with Spring-Heel'd Jack; who =
may
at any moment turn his powers of transmigration on yourself, create for you=
a
view you never held, and then furiously fall on you for holding it. These, =
at
least, are my two favourites, and both are loud, copious intolerant talkers.
This argues that I myself am in the same category; for if we love talking at
all, we love a bright, fierce adversary, who will hold his ground, foot by
foot, in much our own manner, sell his attention dearly, and give us our fu=
ll measure
of the dust and exertion of battle. Both these men can be beat from a posit=
ion,
but it takes six hours to do it; a high and hard adventure, worth attemptin=
g.
With both you can pass days in an enchanted country of the mind, with peopl=
e,
scenery and manners of its own; live a life apart, more arduous, active and
glowing than any real existence; and come forth again when the talk is over=
, as
out of a theatre or a dream, to find the east wind still blowing and the ch=
imney-pots
of the old battered city still around you. Jack has the far finer mind, Bur=
ly
the far more honest; Jack gives us the animated poetry, Burly the romantic
prose, of similar themes; the one glances high like a meteor and makes a li=
ght
in darkness; the other, with many changing hues of fire, burns at the
sea-level, like a conflagration; but both have the same humour and artistic
interests, the same unquenched ardour in pursuit, the same gusts of talk and
thunderclaps of contradiction.
Cockshot[17] is a different article, but vastly
entertaining, and has been meat and drink to me for many a long evening. His
manner is dry, brisk and pertinacious, and the choice of words not much. The
point about him is his extraordinary readiness and spirit. You can propound=
nothing
but he has either a theory about it ready-made, or will have one instantly =
on
the stocks, and proceed to lay its timbers and launch it in your presence.
"Let me see," he will say. "Give me a moment. I should have =
some
theory for that." A blither spectacle than the vigour with which he se=
ts
about the task, it were hard to fancy. He is possessed by a demoniac energy,
welding the elements for his life, and bending ideas, as an athlete bends a
horseshoe, with a visible and lively effort. He has, in theorising, a compa=
ss,
an art; what I would call the synthetic gusto; something of a Herbert
Spencer,[18] who should see the fun of the thing. You are not bound, and no
more is he, to place your faith in these brand-new opinions. But some of th=
em
are right enough, durable even for life; and the poorest serve for a cock-s=
hy--as
when idle people, after picnics, float a bottle on a pond and have an hour's
diversion ere it sinks. Whichever they are, serious opinions or humours of =
the
moment, he still defends his ventures with indefatigable wit and spirit,
hitting savagely himself, but taking punishment like a man. He knows and ne=
ver
forgets that people talk, first of all, for the sake of talking; conducts
himself in the ring, to use the old slang, like a thorough
"glutton,"[19] and honestly enjoys a telling facer from his
adversary. Cockshot is bottled effervescency, the sworn foe of sleep.
Three-in-the-morning Cockshot, says a victim. His talk is like the driest of
all imaginable dry champagnes. Sleight of hand and inimitable quickness are=
the
qualities by which he lives. Athelred,[20] on the other hand, presents you =
with
the spectacle of a sincere and somewhat slow nature thinking aloud. He is t=
he
most unready man I ever knew to shine in conversation. You may see him
sometimes wrestle with a refractory jest for a minute or two together, and
perhaps fail to throw it in the end. And there is something singularly
engaging, often instructive, in the simplicity with which he thus exposes t=
he
process as well as the result, the works as well as the dial of the clock.
Withal he has his hours of inspiration. Apt words come to him as if by
accident, and, coming from deeper down, they smack the more personally, they
have the more of fine old crusted humanity, rich in sediment and humour. Th=
ere
are sayings of his in which he has stamped himself into the very grain of t=
he
language; you would think he must have worn the words next his skin and sle=
pt
with them. Yet it is not as a sayer of particular good things that Athelred=
is
most to be regarded, rather as the stalwart woodman of thought. I have pull=
ed
on a light cord often enough, while he has been wielding the broad-axe; and
between us, on this unequal division, many a specious fallacy has fallen. I
have known him to battle the same question night after night for years, kee=
ping
it in the reign of talk, constantly applying it and re-applying it to life =
with
humorous or grave intention, and all the while, never hurrying, nor flaggin=
g,
nor taking an unfair advantage of the facts. Jack at a given moment, when
arising, as it were, from the tripod, can be more radiantly just to those f=
rom
whom he differs; but then the tenor of his thoughts is even calumnious; whi=
le
Athelred, slower to forge excuses, is yet slower to condemn, and sits over =
the
welter of the world, vacillating but still judicial, and still faithfully
contending with his doubts.
Both the last talkers deal much in points of
conduct and religion studied in the "dry light"[21] of prose.
Indirectly and as if against his will the same elements from time to time
appear in the troubled and poetic talk of Opalstein.[22] His various and ex=
otic
knowledge, complete although unready sympathies, and fine, full, discrimina=
tive
flow of language, fit him out to be the best of talkers; so perhaps he is w=
ith
some, not quite with me--proxime accessit,[23] I should say. He sings the
praises of the earth and the arts, flowers and jewels, wine and music, in a
moonlight, serenading manner, as to the light guitar; even wisdom comes from
his tongue like singing; no one is, indeed, more tuneful in the upper notes.
But even while he sings the song of the Sirens, he still hearkens to the
barking of the Sphinx. Jarring Byronic notes interrupt the flow of his Hora=
tian
humours. His mirth has something of the tragedy of the world for its perpet=
ual
background; and he feasts like Don Giovanni to a double orchestra, one ligh=
tly
sounding for the dance, one pealing Beethoven[24] in the distance. He is not
truly reconciled either with life or with himself; and this instant war in =
his
members sometimes divides the man's attention. He does not always, perhaps =
not
often, frankly surrender himself in conversation. He brings into the talk o=
ther
thoughts than those which he expresses; you are conscious that he keeps an =
eye
on something else, that he does not shake off the world, nor quite forget
himself. Hence arise occasional disappointments; even an occasional unfairn=
ess
for his companions, who find themselves one day giving too much, and the ne=
xt,
when they are wary out of season, giving perhaps too little. Purcel[25] is =
in another
class from any I have mentioned. He is no debater, but appears in conversat=
ion,
as occasion rises, in two distinct characters, one of which I admire and fe=
ar,
and the other love. In the first, he is radiantly civil and rather silent, =
sits
on a high, courtly hilltop, and from that vantage-ground drops you his rema=
rks
like favours. He seems not to share in our sublunary contentions; he wears =
no
sign of interest; when on a sudden there falls in a crystal of wit, so poli=
shed
that the dull do not perceive it, but so right that the sensitive are silen=
ced.
True talk should have more body and blood, should be louder, vainer and more
declaratory of the man; the true talker should not hold so steady an advant=
age
over whom he speaks with; and that is one reason out of a score why I prefe=
r my
Purcel in his second character, when he unbends into a strain of graceful g=
ossip,
singing like the fireside kettle. In these moods he has an elegant homeline=
ss
that rings of the true Queen Anne. I know another person[26] who attains, in
his moments, to the insolence of a Restoration comedy, speaking, I declare,=
as
Congreve[27] wrote; but that is a sport of nature, and scarce falls under t=
he
rubric, for there is none, alas! to give him answer.
One last remark occurs: It is the mark of genu=
ine
conversation that the sayings can scarce be quoted with their full effect
beyond the circle of common friends. To have their proper weight they shoul=
d appear
in a biography, and with the portrait of the speaker. Good talk is dramatic=
; it
is like an impromptu piece of acting where each should represent himself to=
the
greatest advantage; and that is the best kind of talk where each speaker is
most fully and candidly himself, and where, if you were to shift the speech=
es
round from one to another, there would be the greatest loss in significance=
and
perspicuity. It is for this reason that talk depends so wholly on our compa=
ny.
We should like to introduce Falstaff and Mercutio, or Falstaff and Sir Toby;
but Falstaff in talk with Cordelia seems even painful. Most of us, by the
Protean[28] quality of man, can talk to some degree with all; but the true
talk, that strikes out all the slumbering best of us, comes only with the
peculiar brethren of our spirits, is founded as deep as love in the
constitution of our being, and is a thing to relish with all our energy, wh=
ile,
yet we have it, and to be grateful for forever.
=
II[29]
In the last paper there was perhaps too much a=
bout
mere debate; and there was nothing said at all about that kind of talk whic=
h is
merely luminous and restful, a higher power of silence, the quiet of the ev=
ening
shared by ruminating friends. There is something, aside from personal
preference, to be alleged in support of this omission. Those who are no
chimney-cornerers, who rejoice in the social thunderstorm, have a ground in
reason for their choice. They get little rest indeed; but restfulness is a
quality for cattle; the virtues are all active, life is alert, and it is in
repose that men prepare themselves for evil. On the other hand, they are
bruised into a knowledge of themselves and others; they have in a high degr=
ee
the fencer's pleasure in dexterity displayed and proved; what they get they=
get
upon life's terms, paying for it as they go; and once the talk is launched,
they are assured of honest dealing from an adversary eager like themselves.=
The
aboriginal man within us, the cave-dweller, still lusty as when he fought t=
ooth
and nail for roots and berries, scents this kind of equal battle from afar;=
it
is like his old primaeval days upon the crags, a return to the sincerity of
savage life from the comfortable fictions of the civilised. And if it be
delightful to the Old Man, it is none the less profitable to his younger
brother, the conscientious gentleman. I feel never quite sure of your urbane
and smiling coteries; I fear they indulge a man's vanities in silence, suff=
er
him to encroach, encourage him on to be an ass, and send him forth again, n=
ot
merely contemned for the moment, but radically more contemptible than when =
he
entered. But if I have a flushed, blustering fellow for my opposite, bent on
carrying a point, my vanity is sure to have its ears rubbed, once at least,=
in
the course of the debate. He will not spare me when we differ; he will not =
fear
to demonstrate my folly to my face.
For many natures there is not much charm in the
still, chambered society, the circle of bland countenances, the digestive
silence, the admired remark, the flutter of affectionate approval. They dem=
and
more atmosphere and exercise; "a gale upon their spirits," as our
pious ancestors would phrase it; to have their wits well breathed in an upr=
oarious
Valhalla.[30] And I suspect that the choice, given their character and faul=
ts,
is one to be defended. The purely wise are silenced by facts; they talk in a
clear atmosphere, problems lying around them like a view in nature; if they=
can
be shown to be somewhat in the wrong, they digest the reproof like a thrash=
ing,
and make better intellectual blood. They stand corrected by a whisper; a wo=
rd or
a glance reminds them of the great eternal law. But it is not so with all.
Others in conversation seek rather contact with their fellow-men than incre=
ase
of knowledge or clarity of thought. The drama, not the philosophy, of life =
is
the sphere of their intellectual activity. Even when they pursue truth, they
desire as much as possible of what we may call human scenery along the road
they follow. They dwell in the heart of life; the blood sounding in their e=
ars,
their eyes laying hold of what delights them with a brutal avidity that mak=
es
them blind to all besides, their interest riveted on people, living, loving,
talking, tangible people. To a man of this description, the sphere of argum=
ent
seems very pale and ghostly. By a strong expression, a perturbed countenanc=
e,
floods of tears, an insult which his conscience obliges him to swallow, he =
is
brought round to knowledge which no syllogism would have conveyed to him. H=
is
own experience is so vivid, he is so superlatively conscious of himself, th=
at
if, day after day, he is allowed to hector and hear nothing but approving
echoes, he will lose his hold on the soberness of things and take himself in
earnest for a god. Talk might be to such an one the very way of moral ruin;=
the
school where he might learn to be at once intolerable and ridiculous.
This character is perhaps commoner than
philosophers suppose. And for persons of that stamp to learn much by
conversation, they must speak with their superiors, not in intellect, for t=
hat
is a superiority that must be proved, but in station. If they cannot find a
friend to bully them for their good, they must find either an old man, a wo=
man,
or some one so far below them in the artificial order of society, that cour=
tesy
may be particularly exercised.
The best teachers are the aged. To the old our
mouths are always partly closed; we must swallow our obvious retorts and
listen. They sit above our heads, on life's raised dais, and appeal at once=
to
our respect and pity. A flavour of the old school, a touch of something dif=
ferent
in their manner--which is freer and rounder, if they come of what is called=
a
good family, and often more timid and precise if they are of the middle
class--serves, in these days, to accentuate the difference of age and add a
distinction to gray hairs. But their superiority is founded more deeply tha=
n by
outward marks or gestures. They are before us in the march of man; they have
more or less solved the irking problem; they have battled through the equin=
ox
of life; in good and evil they have held their course; and now, without ope=
n shame,
they near the crown and harbour. It may be we have been struck with one of
fortune's darts; we can scarce be civil, so cruelly is our spirit tossed. Y=
et
long before we were so much as thought upon, the like calamity befell the o=
ld
man or woman that now, with pleasant humour, rallies us upon our inattentio=
n,
sitting composed in the holy evening of man's life, in the clear shining af=
ter
rain. We grow ashamed of our distresses new and hot and coarse, like villai=
nous
roadside brandy; we see life in aerial perspective, under the heavens of fa=
ith;
and out of the worst, in the mere presence of contented elders, look forward
and take patience. Fear shrinks before them "like a thing reproved,&qu=
ot;
not the flitting and ineffectual fear of death, but the instant, dwelling
terror of the responsibilities and revenges of life. Their speech, indeed, =
is
timid; they report lions in the path; they counsel a meticulous[31] footing;
but their serene, marred faces are more eloquent and tell another story. Wh=
ere
they have gone, we will go also, not very greatly fearing; what they have
endured unbroken, we also, God helping us, will make a shift to bear.
Not only is the presence of the aged in itself
remedial, but their minds are stored with antidotes, wisdom's simples, plai=
n considerations
overlooked by youth. They have matter to communicate, be they never so stup=
id.
Their talk is not merely literature, it is great literature; classic in vir=
tue of
the speaker's detachment, studded, like a book of travel, with things we sh=
ould
not otherwise have learnt. In virtue, I have said, of the speaker's
detachment--and this is why, of two old men, the one who is not your father
speaks to you with the more sensible authority; for in the paternal relation
the oldest have lively interests and remain still young. Thus I have known =
two
young men great friends; each swore by the other's father; the father of ea=
ch
swore by the other lad; and yet each pair of parent and child were perpetua=
lly
by the ears. This is typical: it reads like the germ of some kindly[32] com=
edy.
The old appear in conversation in two characte=
rs:
the critically silent and the garrulous anecdotic. The last is perhaps what=
we
look for; it is perhaps the more instructive. An old gentleman, well on in =
years,
sits handsomely and naturally in the bow-window of his age, scanning experi=
ence
with reverted eye; and chirping and smiling, communicates the accidents and
reads the lesson of his long career. Opinions are strengthened, indeed, but
they are also weeded out in the course of years. What remains steadily pres=
ent
to the eye of the retired veteran in his hermitage, what still ministers to=
his
content, what still quickens his old honest heart--these are "the real=
long-lived
things"[33] that Whitman tells us to prefer. Where youth agrees with a=
ge,
not where they differ, wisdom lies; and it is when the young disciple finds=
his
heart to beat in tune with his grey-bearded teacher's that a lesson may be =
learned.
I have known one old gentleman, whom I may name, for he is now gathered to =
his stock--Robert
Hunter, Sheriff of Dumbarton,[34] and author of an excellent law-book still
re-edited and republished. Whether he was originally big or little is more =
than
I can guess. When I knew him he was all fallen away and fallen in; crooked =
and
shrunken; buckled into a stiff waistcoat for support; troubled by ailments,
which kept him hobbling in and out of the room; one foot gouty; a wig for
decency, not for deception, on his head; close shaved, except under his chi=
n--and
for that he never failed to apologise, for it went sore against the traditi=
ons
of his life. You can imagine how he would fare in a novel by Miss Mather;[3=
5]
yet this rag of a Chelsea[36] veteran lived to his last year in the plenitu=
de
of all that is best in man, brimming with human kindness, and staunch as a
Roman soldier under his manifold infirmities. You could not say that he had
lost his memory, for he would repeat Shakespeare and Webster and Jeremy Tay=
lor
and Burke[37] by the page together; but the parchment was filled up, there =
was
no room for fresh inscriptions, and he was capable of repeating the same
anecdote on many successive visits. His voice survived in its full power, a=
nd
he took a pride in using it. On his last voyage as Commissioner of Lighthou=
ses,
he hailed a ship at sea and made himself clearly audible without a speaking
trumpet, ruffing the while with a proper vanity in his achievement. He had a
habit of eking out his words with interrogative hems, which was puzzling an=
d a
little wearisome, suited ill with his appearance, and seemed a survival fro=
m some
former stage of bodily portliness. Of yore, when he was a great pedestrian =
and
no enemy to good claret, he may have pointed with these minute guns his
allocutions to the bench. His humour was perfectly equable, set beyond the
reach of fate; gout, rheumatism, stone and gravel might have combined their
forces against that frail tabernacle, but when I came round on Sunday eveni=
ng,
he would lay aside Jeremy Taylor's Life of Christ and greet me with the same
open brow, the same kind formality of manner. His opinions and sympathies d=
ated
the man almost to a decade. He had begun life, under his mother's influence=
, as
an admirer of Junius,[38] but on maturer knowledge had transferred his
admiration to Burke. He cautioned me, with entire gravity, to be punctiliou=
s in
writing English; never to forget that I was a Scotchman, that English was a
foreign tongue, and that if I attempted the colloquial, I should certainly =
be
shamed: the remark was apposite, I suppose, in the days of David Hume.[39]
Scott was too new for him; he had known the author--known him, too, for a T=
ory;
and to the genuine classic a contemporary is always something of a trouble.=
He
had the old, serious love of the play; had even, as he was proud to tell,
played a certain part in the history of Shakespearian revivals, for he had
successfully pressed on Murray, of the old Edinburgh Theatre, the idea of
producing Shakespeare's fairy pieces with great scenic display.[40] A moder=
ate
in religion, he was much struck in the last years of his life by a conversa=
tion
with two young lads, revivalists. "H'm," he would say--"new =
to
me. I have had--h'm--no such experience." It struck him, not with pain,
rather with a solemn philosophic interest, that he, a Christian as he hoped,
and a Christian of so old a standing, should hear these young fellows talki=
ng
of his own subject, his own weapons that he had fought the battle of life
with,--"and--h'm--not understand." In this wise and grateful atti=
tude
he did justice to himself and others, reposed unshaken in his old beliefs, =
and
recognised their limits without anger or alarm. His last recorded remark, on
the last night of his life, was after he had been arguing against Calvinism=
[41]
with his minister and was interrupted by an intolerable pang. "After
all," he said, "of all the 'isms, I know none so bad as
rheumatism." My own last sight of him was some time before, when we di=
ned
together at an inn; he had been on circuit, for he stuck to his duties like=
a
chief part of his existence; and I remember it as the only occasion on whic=
h he
ever soiled his lips with slang--a thing he loathed. We were both Roberts; =
and
as we took our places at table, he addressed me with a twinkle: "We are
just what you would call two bob."[42] He offered me port, I remember,=
as
the proper milk of youth; spoke of "twenty-shilling notes"; and
throughout the meal was full of old-world pleasantry and quaintness, like an
ancient boy on a holiday. But what I recall chiefly was his confession that=
he
had never read Othello to an end.[43] Shakespeare was his continual study. =
He
loved nothing better than to display his knowledge and memory by adducing
parallel passages from Shakespeare, passages where the same word was employ=
ed,
or the same idea differently treated. But Othello had beaten him. "Tha=
t noble
gentleman and that noble lady--h'm--too painful for me." The same night
the boardings were covered with posters, "Burlesque of Othello," =
and
the contrast blazed up in my mind like a bonfire. An unforgettable look it =
gave
me into that kind man's soul. His acquaintance was indeed a liberal and pio=
us
education.[44] All the humanities were taught in that bare dining-room besi=
de
his gouty footstool. He was a piece of good advice; he was himself the inst=
ance
that pointed and adorned his various talk. Nor could a young man have found
elsewhere a place so set apart from envy, fear, discontent, or any of the
passions that debase; a life so honest and composed; a soul like an ancient
violin, so subdued to harmony, responding to a touch in music--as in that
dining-room, with Mr. Hunter chatting at the eleventh hour, under the shado=
w of
eternity, fearless and gentle.
The second class of old people are not anecdot=
ic;
they are rather hearers than talkers, listening to the young with an amused=
and
critical attention. To have this sort of intercourse to perfection, I think=
we
must go to old ladies. Women are better hearers than men, to begin with; th=
ey
learn, I fear in anguish, to bear with the tedious and infantile vanity of =
the
other sex; and we will take more from a woman than even from the oldest man=
in
the way of biting comment. Biting comment is the chief part, whether for pr=
ofit
or amusement, in this business. The old lady that I have in my eye is a very
caustic speaker, her tongue, after years of practice, in absolute command, =
whether
for silence or attack. If she chance to dislike you, you will be tempted to
curse the malignity of age. But if you chance to please even slightly, you =
will
be listened to with a particular laughing grace of sympathy, and from time =
to
time chastised, as if in play, with a parasol as heavy as a pole-axe. It
requires a singular art, as well as the vantage-ground of age, to deal these
stunning corrections among the coxcombs of the young. The pill is disguised=
in
sugar of wit; it is administered as a compliment--if you had not pleased, y=
ou would
not have been censured; it is a personal affair--a hyphen, a trait d'union,=
[45]
between you and your censor; age's philandering, for her pleasure and your
good. Incontestably the young man feels very much of a fool; but he must be=
a
perfect Malvolio,[46] sick with self-love, if he cannot take an open buffet=
and
still smile. The correction of silence is what kills; when you know you hav=
e transgressed,
and your friend says nothing and avoids your eye. If a man were made of
gutta-percha, his heart would quail at such a moment. But when the word is =
out,
the worst is over; and a fellow with any good-humour at all may pass throug=
h a
perfect hail of witty criticism, every bare place on his soul hit to the qu=
ick
with a shrewd missile, and reappear, as if after a dive, tingling with a fi=
ne
moral reaction, and ready, with a shrinking readiness, one-third loath, for=
a repetition
of the discipline.
There are few women, not well sunned and ripen=
ed,
and perhaps toughened, who can thus stand apart from a man and say the true
thing with a kind of genial cruelty. Still there are some--and I doubt if t=
here
be any man who can return the compliment.
The class of men represented by Vernon Whitfor=
d in
The Egoist,[47] says, indeed, the true thing, but he says it stockishly. Ve=
rnon
is a noble fellow, and makes, by the way, a noble and instructive contrast =
to
Daniel Deronda; his conduct is the conduct of a man of honour; but we agree
with him, against our consciences, when he remorsefully considers "its
astonishing dryness." He is the best of men, but the best of women man=
age
to combine all that and something more. Their very faults assist them; they=
are
helped even by the falseness of their position in life. They can retire into
the fortified camp of the proprieties. They can touch a subject and suppress
it. The most adroit employ a somewhat elaborate reserve as a means to be fr=
ank,
much as they wear gloves when they shake hands. But a man has the full resp=
onsibility
of his freedom, cannot evade a question, can scarce be silent without ruden=
ess,
must answer for his words upon the moment, and is not seldom left face to f=
ace with
a damning choice, between the more or less dishonourable wriggling of Deron=
da
and the downright woodenness of Vernon Whitford.
But the superiority of women is perpetually
menaced; they do not sit throned on infirmities like the old; they are suit=
ors as
well as sovereigns; their vanity is engaged, their affections are too apt t=
o follow;
and hence much of the talk between the sexes degenerates into something
unworthy of the name. The desire to please, to shine with a certain softnes=
s of
lustre and to draw a fascinating picture of oneself, banishes from conversa=
tion
all that is sterling and most of what is humorous. As soon as a strong curr=
ent
of mutual admiration begins to flow, the human interest triumphs entirely o=
ver
the intellectual, and the commerce of words, consciously or not, becomes se=
condary
to the commercing of eyes. But even where this ridiculous danger is avoided,
and a man and woman converse equally and honestly, something in their natur=
e or
their education falsifies the strain. An instinct prompts them to agree; and
where that is impossible, to agree to differ. Should they neglect the warni=
ng,
at the first suspicion of an argument, they find themselves in different
hemispheres. About any point of business or conduct, any actual affair dema=
nding
settlement, a woman will speak and listen, hear and answer arguments, not o=
nly with
natural wisdom, but with candour and logical honesty. But if the subject of
debate be something in the air, an abstraction, an excuse for talk, a logic=
al
Aunt Sally, then may the male debater instantly abandon hope; he may employ
reason, adduce facts, be supple, be smiling, be angry, all shall avail him
nothing; what the woman said first, that (unless she has forgotten it) she =
will
repeat at the end. Hence, at the very junctures when a talk between men gro=
ws
brighter and quicker and begins to promise to bear fruit, talk between the =
sexes
is menaced with dissolution. The point of difference, the point of interest=
, is
evaded by the brilliant woman, under a shower of irrelevant conversational
rockets; it is bridged by the discreet woman with a rustle of silk, as she
passes smoothly forward to the nearest point of safety. And this sort of
prestidigitation, juggling the dangerous topic out of sight until it can be
reintroduced with safety in an altered shape, is a piece of tactics among t=
he
true drawing-room queens.
The drawing-room is, indeed, an artificial pla=
ce;
it is so by our choice and for our sins. The subjection of women; the ideal
imposed upon them from the cradle; and worn, like a hair-shirt, with so muc=
h constancy;
their motherly, superior tenderness to man's vanity and self-importance; th=
eir
managing arts--the arts of a civilised slave among good-natured barbarians-=
-are
all painful ingredients and all help to falsify relations. It is not till we
get clear of that amusing artificial scene that genuine relations are found=
ed,
or ideas honestly compared. In the garden, on the road or the hillside, or
tête-à-tête and apart from interruptions, occasions arise
when we may learn much from any single woman; and nowhere more often than i=
n,
married life. Marriage is one long conversation, chequered by disputes. The
disputes are valueless; they but ingrain the difference; the heroic heart o=
f woman
prompting her at once to nail her colours to the mast. But in the intervals,
almost unconsciously and with no desire to shine, the whole material of lif=
e is
turned over and over, ideas are struck out and shared, the two persons more=
and
more adapt their notions one to suit the other, and in process of time, wit=
hout
sound of trumpet, they conduct each, other into new worlds of thought.
The two papers on Talk and Talkers first appea=
red
in the Cornhill Magazine, for April and for August, 1882, Vol. XLV, pp.
410-418, Vol. XLVI, pp. 151-158. The second paper had the title, Talk and
Talkers. (A Sequel.) For Stevenson's relations with the Editor, see our not=
e to
An Apology for Idlers. With the publication of the second part, Stevenson's
connection with the Cornhill ceased, as the magazine in 1883 passed from the
hands of Leslie Stephen into those of James Payn. The two papers next appea=
red
in the volume Memories and Portraits (1887). The first was composed during =
the
winter of 1881-2 at Davos in the Alps, whither he had gone for his health, =
the
second a few months later. Writing to Charles Baxter, 22 Feb. 1882, he said,
"In an article which will appear sometime in the Cornhill, 'Talk and T=
alkers,'
and where I have full-lengthened the conversation of Bob, Henley, Jenkin,
Simpson, Symonds, and Gosse, I have at the end one single word about yourse=
lf.
It may amuse you to see it." (Letters, I, 268.) Writing from Bournemou=
th,
England, in February 1885 to Sidney Colvin, he said, "See how my 'Talk=
and
Talkers' went; every one liked his own portrait, and shrieked about other
people's; so it will be with yours. If you are the least true to the essent=
ial,
the sitter will be pleased; very likely not his friends, and that from vari=
ous motives."
(Letters, I, 413.) In a letter to his mother from Davos, dated 9 April 1882=
, he
gives the real names opposite each character in the first paper, and adds,
"But pray regard these as secrets."
The art of conversation, like the art of
letter-writing, reached its highest point in the eighteenth century; cheap
postage destroyed the latter, and the hurly-burly of modern life has been
almost too strong for the former. In the French Salons of the eighteenth
century, and in the coffeehouses and drawing-rooms of England, good
conversation was regarded as a most desirable accomplishment, and was pract=
ised
by many with extraordinary wit and skill. Swift's satire on Polite Conversa=
tion
(1738) as well as the number of times he discusses the art of conversation =
in
other places, shows how seriously he actually regarded it. Stevenson, like =
many
persons who are forced away from active life, loved a good talk. Good write=
rs
are perhaps now more common than good talkers.
[Note 1: Sir, we had a good talk. This remark =
was
made by the Doctor in 1768, the morning after a memorable meeting at the Cr=
own
and Anchor tavern, where he had been engaged in conversation with seven or
eight notable literary men. "When I called upon Dr. Johnson next
morning," says Boswell, "I found him highly satisfied with his
colloquial prowess the preceding evening. 'Well,' said he, 'we had good tal=
k.' BOSWELL:
'Yes, sir, you tossed and gored several persons.'"]
[Note 2: As we must account. This remark of
Franklin's occurs in Poor Richard's Almanac for 1738.]
[Note 3: Flies ... in the amber. Bartlett gives
Martial.]
"The bee enclosed and through the amber shown, Seems buried in the juice whi=
ch was
his own."
Bacon, Donne, Herrick, Pope and many other aut=
hors
speak of flies in amber.]
[Note 4: Fancy free. See Midsummer Night's Dre=
am,
Act II, Sc. 2.
"And the imperial votaress passed on, In maiden meditation,
fancy-free."
This has been called the most graceful among a=
ll
the countless compliments received by Queen Elizabeth. The word
"fancy" in the Shaksperian quotation means simply "love.&quo=
t;]
[Note 5: A spade a spade. The phrase really co=
mes
from Aristophanes, and is quoted by Plutarch, as Philip's description of the
rudeness of the Macedonians. Kudos. Greek word for "pride", used =
as
slang by school-boys in England.]
[Note 6: Trailing clouds of glory. Trailing wi=
th
him clouds of glory. This passage, from Wordsworth's Ode on the Intimations=
of Immortality
(1807), was a favorite one with Stevenson, and he quotes it several times in
various essays.]
[Note 7: The Flying Dutchman. Wagner's Der
Fliegende Holländer (1843), one of his earliest, shortest, and most
beautiful operas. Many German performances are given in the afternoon, and =
many
German theatres have pretty gardens attached, where, during the long interv=
als
(grosse Pause) between the acts, one may refresh himself with food, drink,
tobacco, and the open air. Germany and German art, however, did not have
anything like the influence on Stevenson exerted by the French country,
language, and literature.]
[Note 8: Theophrastus. A Greek philosopher who
died 287-B.C. His most influential work was his Characters, which, subseque=
ntly
translated into many modern languages, produced a whole school of literature
known as the "Character Books," of which the best are perhaps Sir
Thomas Overbury's Characters (1614), John Earle's Microcosmographie (1628),=
and
the Caractères (1688) of the great French writer, La Bruyère.=
]
[Note 9: Consuelo, Clarissa Harlowe, Vautrin,
Steenie Steenson. Consuelo is the title of one of the most notable novels by
the famous French authoress, George Sand, (1804-1876), whose real name was =
Aurore
Dupin. Consuelo appeared in 1842.... Clarissa (1747-8) was the masterpiece =
of
the novelist Samuel Richardson (1689-1761). This great novel, in seven fat
volumes, was a warm favorite with Stevenson, as it has been with most Engli=
sh
writers from Dr. Johnson to Macaulay. Writing to a friend in December 1877,
Stevenson said, "Please, if you have not, and I don't suppose you have,
already read it, institute a search in all Melbourne for one of the rarest =
and
certainly one of the best of books--Clarissa Harlowe. For any man who takes=
an
interest in the problems of the two sexes, that book is a perfect mine of d=
ocuments.
And it is written, sir, with the pen of an angel." (Letters, I, 141.)
Editions of Clarissa are not so scarce now as they were thirty years ago;
several have appeared within the last few years.... Vautrin is one of the m=
ost
remarkable characters in several novels of Balzac; see especially Pere Gori=
ot
(1834) ... Steenie Steenson in Scott's novel Redgauntlet (1824).]
[Note 10: No human being, etc. Stevenson loved
action in novels, and was impatient, as many readers are, when long-drawn
descriptions of scenery were introduced. Furthermore, the love for wild sce=
nery
has become as fashionable as the love for music; the result being a very ge=
neral
hypocrisy in assumed ecstatic raptures.]
[Note 11: You can keep no men long, nor Scotch=
men
at all. Every Scotchman is a born theologian. Franklin says in his
Autobiography, "I had caught this by reading my father's books of disp=
ute
on Religion. Persons of good sense, I have since observed seldom fall into =
it,
except lawyers, university men, and generally men of all sorts who have been
bred at Edinburgh." (Chap. I.)]
[Note 12: A court of love. A mediaeval institu=
tion
of chivalry, where questions of knight-errantry, constancy in love, etc., w=
ere discussed
and for the time being, decided.]
[Note 13: Spring-Heel'd Jack. This is Stevenso=
n's
cousin "Bob," Robert Alan Mowbray Stevenson (1847-1900), an artis=
t and
later Professor of Fine Arts at University College, Liverpool. He was one o=
f the
best conversationalists in England. Stevenson said of him,
"My cousin Bob, ... is the man likest and most unlike to me tha=
t I have ever met.... What was
specially his, and genuine, was his faculty for turning over a su=
bject
in conversation. There was an insane lucidity in his conclu=
sions;
a singular, humorous eloquence in his language, and a power =
of
method, bringing the whole of life into the focus of the subject=
under
hand; none of which I have ever heard equalled or even approa=
ched
by any other talker." (Balfour's Life of Stevenson, I, 103. For
further remarks on the cousin, see note to page 104 of the Life.=
)]
[Note 14: From Shakespeare to Kant, from Kant = to Major Dyngwell. Immanuel Kant, the foremost philosopher of the eighteenth century, born at Königsberg in 1724, died 1804. His greatest work, the= Critique of Pure Reason (Kritick der reinen Vernunft, 1781), produced about the same revolutionary effect on metaphysics as that produced by Copernicus in astronomy, or by Darwin in natural science.... Major Dyngwell I know not.]<= o:p>
[Note 15: Burly. Burly is Stevenson's friend, =
the
poet William Ernest Henley, who died in 1903. His sonnet on our author may =
be found
in the introduction to this book. Leslie Stephen introduced the two men on =
13
Feb. 1875, when Henley was in the hospital, and a very close and intimate
friendship began. Henley's personality was exceedingly robust, in contrast =
with
his health, and in his writings and talk he delighted in shocking people. H=
is
philosophy of life is seen clearly in his most characteristic poem:
"Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit =
from
pole to pole, I thank
whatever Gods may be For my unconquera=
ble
soul.
In
the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced=
nor
cried aloud. Under the
bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody=
, but
unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Hor=
ror of
the shade, And yet the =
menace
of the years Finds, and shall =
find,
me unafraid.
It
matters not how strait the gate, How charged with
punishments the scroll, I am
the master of my fate: I am the Captain =
of my
soul."
After the publication of Balfour's Life of
Stevenson (1901), Mr. Henley contributed to the Pall Mall Magazine in Decem=
ber
of that year an article called R.L.S., which made a tremendous sensation. I=
t was
regarded by many of Stevenson's friends as a wanton assault on his private
character. Whether justified or not, it certainly damaged Henley more than =
the
dead author. For further accounts of the relations between the two men, see
index to Balfour's Life, under the title Henley.]
[Note 16: Pistol has been out-Pistol'd. The
burlesque character in Shakspere's King Henry IV and V.]
[Note 17: Cockshot. (The Late Fleeming Jenkin.=
) As
the note says, this was Professor Fleeming Jenkin, who died 12 June 1885. H=
e exercised
a great influence over the younger man. Stevenson paid the debt of gratitud=
e he
owed him by writing the Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin, published first in Ameri=
ca
by Charles Scribner's Sons, in 1887.]
[Note 18: Synthetic gusto; something of a Herb=
ert
Spencer. The English philosopher, Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), whose many
volumes in various fields of science and metaphysics were called by their a=
uthor
the Synthetic Philosophy. His most popular book is First Principles (1862),
which has exercised an enormous influence in the direction of agnosticism. =
His
Autobiography, two big volumes, was published in 1904, and fell rather flat=
.]
[Note 19: Like a thorough "glutton."
This is still the slang of the prize-ring. When a man is able to stand a gr=
eat
deal of punching without losing consciousness or courage, he is called a
"glutton for punishment."]
[Note 20: Athelred. Sir Walter Simpson, who was
Stevenson's companion on the Inland Voyage. For a good account of him, see =
Balfour's
Life of Stevenson, I, 106.]
[Note 21: "Dry light." "The more
perfect soul," says Heraclitus, "is a dry light, which flies out =
of
the body as lightning breaks from a cloud." Plutarch, Life of Romulus.=
]
[Note 22: Opalstein. This was the writer and a=
rt
critic, John Addington Symonds (1840-1893). Like Stevenson, he was afflicted
with lung trouble, and spent much of his time at Davos, Switzerland, where a
good part of his literary work was done. "The great feature of the pla=
ce
for Stevenson was the presence of John Addington Symonds, who, having come
there three years before on his way to Egypt, had taken up his abode in Dav=
os,
and was now building himself a house. To him the newcomer bore a letter of
introduction from Mr. Gosse. On November 5th (1880) Louis wrote to his moth=
er:
'We got to Davos last evening; and I feel sure we shall like it greatly. I =
saw
Symonds this morning, and already like him; it is such sport to have a lite=
rary
man around.... Symonds is like a Tait to me; eternal interest in the same
topics, eternal cross-causewaying of special knowledge. That makes hours to=
fly.'
And a little later he wrote: 'Beyond its splendid climate, Davos has but one
advantage--the neighbourhood of J.A. Symonds. I dare say you know his work,=
but
the man is far more interesting.'" (Balfour's Life of Stevenson, I, 21=
4.)
When Symonds first read the essay Talk and Talkers, he pretended to be angr=
y,
and said, "Louis Stevenson, what do you mean by describing me as a
moonlight serenader?" (Life, I, 233.)]
[Note 23: Proxime accessit. "He comes very
near to it."]
[Note 24: Sirens ... Sphinx Byronic ... Horati=
an
... Don Giovanni ... Beethoven. The Sirens were the famous women of Greek
mythology, who lured mariners to destruction by the overpowering sweetness =
of
their songs. How Ulysses outwitted them is well-known to all readers of the=
Odyssey.
One of Tennyson's earlier poems, The Sea-Fairies, deals with the same theme,
and indeed it has appeared constantly in the literature of the world.... The
Sphinx, a familiar subject in Egyptian art, had a lion's body, the head of =
some
other animal (sometimes man) and wings. It was a symbolical figure. The most
famous example is of course the gigantic Sphinx near the Pyramids in Egypt,=
which
has proved to be an inexhaustible theme for speculation and for poetry.... =
The
theatrically tragic mood of Byron is contrasted with the easy-going, somewh=
at
cynical epicureanism of Horace.... Don Giovanni (1787) the greatest opera of
the great composer Mozart (1756-1791), tells the same story told by
Molière and so many others. The French composer, Gounod, said that
Mozart's Don Giovanni was the greatest musical composition that the world h=
as
ever seen.... Beethoven (1770-1827) occupies in general estimation about the
same place in the history of music that Shakspere fills in the history of l=
iterature.]
[Note 25: Purcel. This stands for Mr. Edmund G=
osse
(born 1849), a poet and critic of some note, who writes pleasantly on many
topics. Many of Stevenson's letters were addressed to him. The two friends =
first
met in London in 1877, and the impression made by the novelist on the critic
may be seen in Mr. Gosse's book of essays, Critical Kitcats (1896).]
[Note 26: I know another person. This is
undoubtedly Stevenson's friend Charles Baxter. See the quotation from a let=
ter
to him in our introductory note to this essay. Compare what Stevenson elsew=
here
said of him: "I cannot characterise a personality so unusual in the li=
ttle
space that I can here afford. I have never known one of so mingled a strain=
....
He is the only man I ever heard of who could give and take in conversation =
with
the wit and polish of style that we find in Congreve's comedies."
(Balfour's Life of Stevenson, I, 105.)]
[Note 27: Restoration comedy ... Congreve.
Restoration comedy is a general name applied to the plays acted in England
between 1660, the year of the restoration of Charles II to the throne, and
1700, the year of the death of Dryden. This comedy is as remarkable for the=
brilliant
wit of its dialogue as for its gross licentiousness. Perhaps the wittiest
dramatist of the whole group was William Congreve (1670-1729).]
[Note 28: Falstaff ... Mercutio ... Sir Toby .=
.. Cordelia
... Protean. Sir John Falstaff, who appears in Shakspere's King Henry IV, a=
nd
again in the Merry Wives of Windsor, is generally regarded as the greatest
comic character in literature.... Mercutio, the friend of Romeo; one of the
most marvellous of all Shakspere's gentlemen. He is the Hotspur of comedy, =
and
his taking off by Tybalt "eclipsed the gaiety of nations."... Sir
Toby Belch is the genial character in Twelfth Night, fond of singing and
drinking, but no fool withal. A conversation between Falstaff, Mercutio, and
Sir Toby would have taxed even the resources of a Shakspere, and would have=
been
intolerably excellent.... Cordelia, the daughter of King Lear, whose sincer=
ity
and tenderness combined make her one of the greatest women in the history of
poetry.... Protean, something that constantly assumes different forms. In
mythology, Proteus was the son of Oceanus and Tethys, whose special power w=
as
his faculty for lightning changes.
"Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea."--Wordsworth.]=
[Note 29: This sequel was called forth by an
excellent article in The Spectator, for 1 April 1882, and bore the title, T=
he
Restfulness of Talk. The opening words of this article were as
follows:--"The fine paper on 'Talk,' by 'R.L.S.,' in the Cornhill for =
April,
a paper which a century since would, by itself, have made a literary reputa=
tion,
does not cover the whole field."]
[Note 30: Valhalla. In Scandinavian mythology,
this was the heaven for the brave who fell in battle. Here they had an eter=
nity
of fighting and drinking.]
[Note 31: Meticulous. Timid. From the Latin,
meticulosus.]
[Note 32: Kindly. Here used in the old sense of
"natural." Compare the Litany, "the kindly fruits of the
earth."]
[Note 33: "The real long-lived things.&qu=
ot;
For Whitman, see our Note 12 of Chapter III above.]
[Note 34: Robert Hunter, Sheriff of Dumbarton.
Hunter recognised the genius in Stevenson long before the latter became kno=
wn
to the world, and gave him much friendly encouragement. Dumbarton is a town
about 16 miles north-west of Glasgow, in Scotland. It contains a castle fam=
ous in
history and in literature.]
[Note 35: A novel by Miss Mather. The name sho=
uld
be "Mathers." Helen Mathers (Mrs. Henry Reeves), born in 1853, has
written a long series of novels, of which My Lady Greensleeves, The Sin of
Hagar and Venus Victrix are perhaps as well-known as they deserve to be.]
[Note 36: Chelsea. Formerly a suburb, now a pa=
rt
of London, to the S.W. It is famous for its literary associations. Swift,
Thomas Carlyle, Leigh Hunt, George Eliot, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and many o=
ther
distinguished writers lived in Chelsea at various times. It contains a great
hospital, to which Stevenson seems to refer here.]
[Note 37: Webster, Jeremy Taylor, Burke. John
Webster was one of the Elizabethan dramatists, who, in felicity of diction,
approached more nearly to Shakspere than most of his contemporaries. His
greatest play was The Duchess of Malfi (acted in 1616). Jeremy Taylor
(1613-1667), often called the "Shakspere of Divines," was one of =
the
greatest pulpit orators in English history. His most famous work, still a c=
lassic,
is Holy Living and Holy Dying (1650-1). Edmund Burke (1729-1797) the
parliamentary orator and author of the Sublime and Beautiful (1756), whose
speeches on America are only too familiar to American schoolboys.]
[Note 38: Junius. No one knows yet who
"Junius" was. In the Public Advertiser from 21 Jan. 1769 to 21 Ja=
n.
1772, appeared letters signed by this name, which made a sensation. The
identity of the author was a favorite matter for dispute during many years.=
]
[Note 39: David Hume. The great Scotch skeptic=
and
philosopher (1711-1776).]
[Note 40: Shakespeare's fairy pieces with great
scenic display. So far from this being a novelty to-day, it has become rath=
er
nauseating, and there are evidences of a reaction in favour of hearing
Shakspere on the stage rather than seeing him.]
[Note 41: Calvinism. If this word does not nee=
d a
note yet, it certainly will before long. The founder of the theological sys=
tem Calvinism
was John Calvin, born in France in 1509. The chief doctrines are
Predestination, the Atonement (by which the blood of Christ appeased the wr=
ath
of God toward those persons only who had been previously chosen for
salvation--on all others the sacrifice was ineffectual), Original Sin, and =
the
Perseverance of the Saints (once saved, one could not fall from grace). The=
se
doctrines remained intact in the creed of Presbyterian churches in America
until a year or two ago.]
[Note 42: Two bob. A pun, for "bob" =
is
slang for "shilling."]
[Note 43: Never read Othello to an end. In A
Gossip on a Novel of Dumas's, Stevenson confessed that there were four play=
s of
Shakspere he had never been able to read through, though for a different
reason: they were Richard III, Henry VI, Titus Andronicus, and All's Well t=
hat
Ends Well. It is still an open question as to whether or not Shakspere wrote
Titus.]
[Note 44: A liberal and pious education. It was
Sir Richard Steele who made the phrase, in The Tatler, No. 49: "to love
her (Lady Elizabeth Hastings) was a liberal education."]
[Note 45: Trait d'union. The French expression
simply means "hyphen": literally, "mark of connection."=
]
[Note 46: Malvolio. The conceited but not whol=
ly
contemptible character in Twelfth Night.]
[Note 47: The Egoist. The Egoist (1879) is one=
of
the best-known novels of Mr. George Meredith, born 1828. It had been publis=
hed
only a very short time before Stevenson wrote this essay, so he is commenti=
ng on
one of the "newest" books. Stevenson's enthusiasm for Meredith kn=
ew no
bounds, and he regarded the Egoist and Richard Feverel (1859), as among the
masterpieces of English literature. Daniel Deronda, the last and by no means
the best novel of George Eliot (1820-1880), had appeared in 1876.]
=
In anything fit to be called by the name of
reading, the process itself should be absorbing and voluptuous; we should g=
loat
over a book, be rapt clean out of ourselves, and rise from the perusal, our=
mind
filled with the busiest, kaleidoscopic dance of images, incapable of sleep =
or
of continuous thought. The words, if the book be eloquent, should run
thence-forward in our ears like the noise of breakers, and the story, if it=
be
a story, repeat itself in a thousand coloured pictures to the eye. It was f=
or
this last pleasure that we read so closely, and loved our books so dearly, =
in
the bright, troubled period of boyhood. Eloquence and thought, character and
conversation, were but obstacles to brush aside as we dug blithely after a
certain sort of incident, like a pig for truffles.[1] For my part, I liked a
story to begin with an old wayside inn where, "towards the close of the
year 17--," several gentlemen in three-cocked hats were playing bowls.=
A friend
of mine preferred the Malabar coast[2] in a storm, with a ship beating to
windward, and a scowling fellow of Herculean proportions striding along the
beach; he, to be sure, was a pirate. This was further afield than my
home-keeping fancy loved to travel, and designed altogether for a larger ca=
nvas
than the tales that I affected. Give me a highwayman and I was full to the
brim; a Jacobite[3] would do, but the highwayman was my favourite dish. I c=
an still
hear that merry clatter of the hoofs along the moonlit lane; night and the
coming of day are still related in my mind with the doings of John Rann or
Jerry Abershaw;[4] and the words "postchaise," the "great No=
rth
road,"[5] "ostler," and "nag" still sound in my ea=
rs like
poetry. One and all, at least, and each with his particular fancy, we read
story-books in childhood; not for eloquence or character or thought, but for
some quality of the brute incident. That quality was not mere bloodshed or
wonder. Although each of these was welcome in its place, the charm for the =
sake
of which we read depended on something different from either. My elders use=
d to
read novels aloud; and I can still remember four different passages which I
heard, before I was ten, with the same keen and lasting pleasure. One I dis=
covered
long afterwards to be the admirable opening of What will he Do with It?[6] =
It
was no wonder I was pleased with that. The other three still remain
unidentified. One is a little vague; it was about a dark, tall house at nig=
ht,
and people groping on the stairs by the light that escaped from the open do=
or
of a sickroom. In another, a lover left a ball, and went walking in a cool,
dewy park, whence he could watch the lighted windows and the figures of the
dancers as they moved. This was the most sentimental impression I think I h=
ad
yet received, for a child is somewhat deaf to the sentimental. In the last,=
a
poet, who had been tragically wrangling with his wife, walked forth on the
sea-beach on a tempestuous night and witnessed the horrors of a wreck.[7]
Different as they are, all these early favourites have a common note--they =
have
all a touch of the romantic.
Drama is the poetry of conduct, romance the po=
etry
of circumstance. The pleasure that we take in life is of two sorts--the act=
ive
and the passive. Now we are conscious of a great command over our destiny; =
anon
we are lifted up by circumstance, as by a breaking wave, and dashed we know=
not
how into the future. Now we are pleased by our conduct, anon merely pleased=
by
our surroundings. It would be hard to say which of these modes of satisfact=
ion
is the more effective, but the latter is surely the more constant. Conduct =
is
three parts of life,[8] they say; but I think they put it high. There is a =
vast
deal in life and letters both which is not immoral, but simply a-moral; whi=
ch
either does not regard the human will at all, or deals with it in obvious a=
nd
healthy relations; where the interest turns, not upon what a man shall choo=
se
to do, but on how he manages to do it; not on the passionate slips and
hesitations of the conscience, but on the problems of the body and of the p=
ractical
intelligence, in clean, open-air adventure, the shock of arms or the diplom=
acy
of life. With such material as this it is impossible to build a play, for t=
he serious
theatre exists solely on moral grounds, and is a standing proof of the
dissemination of the human conscience. But it is possible to build, upon th=
is
ground, the most joyous of verses, and the most lively, beautiful and buoya=
nt
tales.
One thing in life calls for another; there is a
fitness in events and places. The sight of a pleasant arbour[9] puts it in =
our
minds to sit there. One place suggests work, another idleness, a third early
rising and long rambles in the dew. The effect of night, of any flowing wat=
er,
of lighted cities, of the peep of day, of ships, of the open ocean, calls u=
p in
the mind an army of anonymous desires and pleasures. Something, we feel, sh=
ould
happen; we know not what, yet we proceed in quest of it. And many of the
happiest hours of life fleet by us in this vain attendance on the genius of=
the
place and moment. It is thus that tracts of young fir, and low rocks that r=
each
into deep soundings, particularly torture and delight me. Something must ha=
ve
happened in such places, and perhaps ages back, to members of my race; when=
I
was a child I tried in vain to invent appropriate games for them, as I still
try, just as vainly, to fit them with the proper story. Some places speak
distinctly. Certain dank gardens cry aloud for a murder; certain old houses
demand to be haunted; certain coasts are set apart for ship-wreck. Other sp=
ots
again seem to abide their destiny, suggestive and impenetrable, "michi=
ng
mallecho."[10] The inn at Burford Bridge,[11] with its arbours and gre=
en
garden and silent, eddying river--though it is known already as the place w=
here
Keats wrote some of his Endymion and Nelson parted from his Emma--still see=
ms
to wait the coming of the appropriate legend. Within these ivied walls, beh=
ind
these old green shutters, some further business smoulders, waiting for its
hour. The old Hawes Inn at the Queen's Ferry makes a similar call upon my
fancy. There it stands, apart from the town, beside the pier, in a climate =
of
its own, half inland, half marine--in front, the ferry bubbling with the ti=
de
and the guard-ship swinging to her anchor; behind, the old garden with the
trees. Americans seek it already for the sake of Lovel and Oldbuck, who din=
ed there
at the beginning of the Antiquary. But you need not tell me--that is not al=
l;
there is some story, unrecorded or not yet complete, which must express the
meaning of that inn more fully. So it is with names and faces; so it is with
incidents that are idle and inconclusive in themselves, and yet seem like t=
he
beginning of some quaint romance, which the all-careless author leaves unto=
ld.
How many of these romances have we not seen determine at their birth; how m=
any people
have met us with a look of meaning in their eye, and sunk at once into triv=
ial
acquaintances; to how many places have we not drawn near, with express
intimations--"here my destiny awaits me"--and we have but dined t=
here
and passed on! I have lived both at the Hawes and Burford in a perpetual
flutter, on the heels, as it seemed, of some adventure that should justify =
the
place; but though the feeling had me to bed at night and called me again at
morning in one unbroken round of pleasure and suspense, nothing befell me in
either worth remark. The man or the hour had not yet come; but some day, I
think, a boat shall put off from the Queen's Ferry, fraught with a dear car=
go,
and some frosty night a horseman, on a tragic errand, rattle with his whip =
upon
the green shutters of the inn at Burford.[12]
Now, this is one of the natural appetites with
which any lively literature has to count. The desire for knowledge, I had
almost added the desire for meat, is not more deeply seated than this demand
for fit and striking incident. The dullest of clowns tells, or tries to tel=
l,
himself a story, as the feeblest of children uses invention in his play; and
even as the imaginative grown person, joining in the game, at once enriches=
it
with many delightful circumstances, the great creative writer shows us the
realisation and the apotheosis of the day-dreams of common men. His stories=
may
be nourished with the realities of life, but their true mark is to satisfy =
the
nameless longings of the reader, and to obey the ideal laws of the day-drea=
m. The
right kind of thing should fall out in the right kind of place; the right k=
ind
of thing should follow; and not only the characters talk aptly and think
naturally, but all the circumstances in a tale answer one to another like n=
otes
in music. The threads of a story come from time to time together and make a
picture in the web; the characters fall from time to time into some attitud=
e to
each other or to nature, which stamps the story home like an illustration. =
Crusoe[13]
recoiling from the footprint, Achilles shouting over against the Trojans,
Ulysses bending the great bow, Christian running with his fingers in his ea=
rs,
these are each culminating moments in the legend, and each has been printed=
on
the mind's eye forever. Other things we may forget; we may forget the words,
although they are beautiful; we may forget the author's comment, although
perhaps it was ingenious and true; but these epoch-making scenes, which put=
the
last mark of truth upon a story and fill up, at one blow, our capacity for =
sympathetic
pleasure, we so adopt into the very bosom of our mind that neither time nor
tide can efface or weaken the impression. This, then, is the plastic part of
literature: to embody character, thought, or emotion in some act or attitude
that shall be remarkably striking to the mind's eye. This is the highest and
hardest thing to do in words; the thing which, once accomplished, equally
delights the schoolboy and the sage, and makes, in its own right, the quali=
ty
of epics. Compared with this, all other purposes in literature, except the
purely lyrical or the purely philosophic, are bastard in nature, facile of
execution, and feeble in result. It is one thing to write about the inn at =
Burford,
or to describe scenery with the word-painters; it is quite another to seize=
on
the heart of the suggestion and make a country famous with a legend. It is =
one
thing to remark and to dissect, with the most cutting logic, the complicati=
ons
of life, and of the human spirit; it is quite another to give them body and
blood in the story of Ajax[14] or of Hamlet. The first is literature, but t=
he
second is something besides, for it is likewise art.
English people of the present day[15] are apt,=
I
know not why, to look somewhat down on incident, and reserve their admirati=
on
for the clink of teaspoons and the accents of the curate. It is thought cle=
ver
to write a novel with no story at all, or at least with a very dull one. Re=
duced
even to the lowest terms, a certain interest can be communicated by the art=
of
narrative; a sense of human kinship stirred; and a kind of monotonous fitne=
ss,
comparable to the words and air of Sandy's Mull, preserved among the
infinitesimal occurrences recorded. Some people work, in this manner, with =
even
a strong touch. Mr. Trollope's inimitable clergymen naturally arise to the =
mind
in this connection. But even Mr. Trollope[16] does not confine himself to c=
hronicling
small beer. Mr. Crawley's collision with the Bishop's wife, Mr. Melnette
dallying in the deserted banquet-room, are typical incidents, epically
conceived, fitly embodying a crisis. Or again look at Thackeray. If Rawdon
Crawley's blow were not delivered, Vanity Fair would cease to be a work of =
art.
That scene is the chief ganglion of the tale; and the discharge of energy f=
rom
Rawdon's fist is the reward and consolation of the reader. The end of Esmon=
d is
a yet wider excursion from the author's customary fields; the scene at Cast=
lewood
is pure Dumas;[17] the great and wily English borrower has here borrowed fr=
om
the great, unblushing French thief; as usual, he has borrowed admirably wel=
l,
and the breaking of the sword rounds off the best of all his books with a
manly, martial note. But perhaps nothing can more strongly illustrate the n=
ecessity
for marking incident than to compare the living fame of Robinson Crusoe with
the discredit of Clarissa Harlowe.[18] Clarissa is a book of a far more
startling import, worked out, on a great canvas, with inimitable courage and
unflagging art. It contains wit, character, passion, plot, conversations fu=
ll
of spirit and insight, letters sparkling with unstrained humanity; and if t=
he
death of the heroine be somewhat frigid and artificial, the last days of the
hero strike the only note of what we now call Byronism,[19] between the
Elizabethans and Byron himself. And yet a little story of a ship-wrecked
sailor, with not a tenth part of the style nor a thousandth part of the wis=
dom,
exploring none of the arcana of humanity and deprived of the perennial inte=
rest
of love, goes on from edition to edition, ever young, while Clarissa lies u=
pon
the shelves unread. A friend of mine, a Welsh blacksmith, was twenty-five y=
ears
old and could neither read nor write, when he heard a chapter of Robinson r=
ead
aloud in a farm kitchen. Up to that moment he had sat content, huddled in h=
is
ignorance, but he left that farm another man. There were day-dreams, it
appeared, divine day-dreams, written and printed and bound, and to be bought
for money and enjoyed at pleasure. Down he sat that day, painfully learned =
to read
Welsh, and returned to borrow the book. It had been lost, nor could he find
another copy but one that was in English. Down he sat once more, learned
English, and at length, and with entire delight, read Robinson. It is like =
the
story of a love-chase. If he had heard a letter from Clarissa, would he have
been fired with the same chivalrous ardour? I wonder. Yet Clarissa has every
quality that can be shown in prose, one alone excepted--pictorial or
picture-making romance. While Robinson depends, for the most part and with =
the overwhelming
majority of its readers, on the charm of circumstance.
In the highest achievements of the art of word=
s,
the dramatic and the pictorial, the moral and romantic interest, rise and f=
all
together by a common and organic law. Situation is animated with passion,
passion clothed upon with situation. Neither exists for itself, but each in=
heres
indissolubly with the other. This is high art; and not only the highest art
possible in words, but the highest art of all, since it combines the greate=
st
mass and diversity of the elements of truth and pleasure. Such are epics, a=
nd
the few prose tales that have the epic weight. But as from a school of work=
s,
aping the creative, incident and romance are ruthlessly discarded, so may
character and drama be omitted or subordinated to romance. There is one boo=
k,
for example, more generally loved than Shakespeare, that captivates in chil=
dhood,
and still delights in age--I mean the Arabian Nights--where you shall look =
in
vain for moral or for intellectual interest. No human face or voice greets =
us
among that wooden crowd of kings and genies, sorcerers and beggarmen.
Adventure, on the most naked terms, furnishes forth the entertainment and is
found enough. Dumas approaches perhaps nearest of any modern to these Arabi=
an authors
in the purely material charm of some of his romances. The early part of Mon=
te
Cristo, down to the finding of the treasure, is a piece of perfect
story-telling; the man never breathed who shared these moving incidents wit=
hout
a tremor; and yet Faria is a thing of packthread and Dantès[20] litt=
le
more than a name. The sequel is one long-drawn error, gloomy, bloody, unnat=
ural
and dull; but as for these early chapters, I do not believe there is another
volume extant where you can breathe the same unmingled atmosphere of romanc=
e.
It is very thin and light, to be sure, as on a high mountain; but it is bri=
sk
and clear and sunny in proportion. I saw the other day, with envy, an old a=
nd a
very clever lady setting forth on a second or third voyage into Monte Crist=
o.
Here are stories which powerfully affect the reader, which can be reperused=
at
any age, and where the characters are no more than puppets. The bony fist of
the showman visibly propels them; their springs are an open secret; their f=
aces
are of wood, their bellies filled with bran; and yet we thrillingly partake=
of
their adventures. And the point may be illustrated still further. The last =
interview
between Lucy and Richard Feveril[21] is pure drama; more than that, it is t=
he
strongest scene, since Shakespeare, in the English tongue. Their first meet=
ing
by the river, on the other hand, is pure romance; it has nothing to do with
character; it might happen to any other boy and maiden, and be none the less
delightful for the change. And yet I think he would be a bold man who should
choose between these passages. Thus, in the same book, we may have two scen=
es,
each capital in its order: in the one, human passion, deep calling unto dee=
p,
shall utter its genuine voice; in the second, according circumstances, like
instruments in tune, shall build up a trivial but desirable incident, such =
as
we love to prefigure for ourselves; and in the end, in spite of the critics=
, we
may hesitate to give the preference to either. The one may ask more genius-=
-I
do not say it does; but at least the other dwells as clearly in the memory.=
True romantic art, again, makes a romance of a=
ll
things. It reaches into the highest abstraction of the ideal; it does not
refuse the most pedestrian realism. Robinson Crusoe is as realistic as it i=
s romantic:[22]
both qualities are pushed to an extreme, and neither suffers. Nor does roma=
nce
depend upon the material importance of the incidents. To deal with strong a=
nd
deadly elements, banditti, pirates, war and murder, is to conjure with great
names, and, in the event of failure, to double the disgrace. The arrival of
Haydn[23] and Consuelo at the Canon's villa is a very trifling incident; ye=
t we
may read a dozen boisterous stories from beginning to end, and not receive =
so fresh
and stirring an impression of adventure. It was the scene of Crusoe at the
wreck, if I remember rightly, that so bewitched my blacksmith. Nor is the f=
act
surprising. Every single article the castaway recovers from the hulk is &qu=
ot;a
joy for ever"[24] to the man who reads of them. They are the things th=
at
should be found, and the bare enumeration stirs the blood. I found a glimme=
r of
the same interest the other day in a new book, The Sailor's Sweetheart,[25]=
by
Mr. Clark Russell. The whole business of the brig Morning Star is very righ=
tly
felt and spiritedly written; but the clothes, the books and the money satis=
fy
the reader's mind like things to eat. We are dealing here with the old
cut-and-dry legitimate interest of treasure trove. But even treasure trove =
can
be made dull. There are few people who have not groaned under the plethora =
of
goods that fell to the lot of the Swiss Family Robinson,[26] that dreary
family. They found article after article, creature after creature, from milk
kine to pieces of ordnance, a whole consignment; but no informing taste had=
presided
over the selection, there was no smack or relish in the invoice; and these
riches left the fancy cold. The box of goods in Verne's Mysterious Island[2=
7]
is another case in point: there was no gusto and no glamour about that; it
might have come from a shop. But the two hundred and seventy-eight Australi=
an
sovereigns on board the Morning Star fell upon me like a surprise that I had
expected; whole vistas of secondary stories, besides the one in hand, radia=
ted
forth from that discovery, as they radiate from a striking particular in li=
fe;
and I was made for the moment as happy as a reader has the right to be.
To come at all at the nature of this quality of
romance, we must bear in mind the peculiarity of our attitude to any art. No
art produces illusion; in the theatre we never forget that we are in the
theatre; and while we read a story, we sit wavering between two minds, now =
merely
clapping our hands at the merit of the performance, now condescending to ta=
ke
an active part in fancy with the characters. This last is the triumph of
romantic story-telling: when the reader consciously plays at being the hero,
the scene is a good scene. Now in character-studies the pleasure that we ta=
ke
is critical; we watch, we approve, we smile at incongruities, we are moved =
to
sudden heats of sympathy with courage, suffering or virtue. But the charact=
ers
are still themselves, they are not us; the more clearly they are depicted, =
the
more widely do they stand away from us, the more imperiously do they thrust=
us
back into our place as a spectator. I cannot identify myself with Rawdon
Crawley or with Eugène de Rastignac,[28] for I have scarce a hope or
fear in common with them. It is not character but incident that woos us out=
of
our reserve. Something happens as we desire to have it happen to ourselves;
some situation, that we have long dallied with in fancy, is realised in the
story with enticing and appropriate details. Then we forget the characters;
then we push the hero aside; then we plunge into the tale in our own person=
and
bathe in fresh experience; and then, and then only, do we say we have been =
reading
a romance. It is not only pleasurable things that we imagine in our day-dre=
ams;
there are lights in which we are willing to contemplate even the idea of our
own death; ways in which it seems as if it would amuse us to be cheated,
wounded or calumniated. It is thus possible to construct a story, even of
tragic import, in which every incident, detail and trick of circumstance sh=
all
be welcome to the reader's thoughts. Fiction is to the grown man what play =
is
to the child; it is there that he changes the atmosphere and tenor of his l=
ife;
and when the game so chimes with his fancy that he can join in it with all =
his
heart, when it pleases him with every turn, when he loves to recall it and
dwells upon its recollection with entire delight, fiction is called romance=
.
Walter Scott is out and away the king of the
romantics. The Lady of the Lake has no indisputable claim to be a poem beyo=
nd
the inherent fitness and desirability of the tale. It is just such a story =
as a
man would make up for himself, walking, in the best health and temper, thro=
ugh
just such scenes as it is laid in. Hence it is that a charm dwells undefina=
ble
among these slovenly verses, as the unseen cuckoo fills the mountains with =
his
note; hence, even after we have flung the book aside, the scenery and
adventures remain present to the mind, a new and green possession, not unwo=
rthy
of that beautiful name, The Lady of the Lake,[29] or that direct, romantic
opening,--one of the most spirited and poetical in literature,--"The s=
tag
at eve had drunk his fill." The same strength and the same weaknesses
adorn and disfigure the novels. In that ill-written, ragged book, The Pirat=
e,[30]
the figure of Cleveland--cast up by the sea on the resounding foreland of
Dunrossness--moving, with the blood on his hands and the Spanish words on h=
is
tongue, among the simple islanders--singing a serenade under the window of =
his
Shetland mistress--is conceived in the very highest manner of romantic inve=
ntion.
The words of his song, "Through groves of palm," sung in such a s=
cene
and by such a lover, clench, as in a nutshell, the emphatic contrast upon w=
hich
the tale is built. In Guy Mannering,[31] again, every incident is delightfu=
l to
the imagination; and the scene when Harry Bertram lands at Ellangowan is a =
model
instance of romantic method.
"'I remember the tune well,' he says, 'th=
ough
I cannot guess what should at present so strongly recall it to my memory.' =
He
took his flageolet from his pocket and played a simple melody. Apparently t=
he tune
awoke the corresponding associations of a damsel.... She immediately took up
the song--
"'Are these the links of Forth, she said; Or ar=
e they
the crooks of Dee, Or t=
he
bonny woods of Warroch Head That =
I so
fain would see?'
"'By heaven!' said Bertram, 'it is the ve=
ry
ballad.'"
On this quotation two remarks fall to be made.
First, as an instance of modern feeling for romance, this famous touch of t=
he
flageolet and the old song is selected by Miss Braddon for omission. Miss
Braddon's idea[32] of a story, like Mrs. Todgers's idea of a wooden leg,[33=
] were
something strange to have expounded. As a matter of personal experience, Me=
g's
appearance to old Mr. Bertram on the road, the ruins of Derncleugh, the sce=
ne
of the flageolet, and the Dominie's recognition of Harry, are the four stro=
ng
notes that continue to ring in the mind after the book is laid aside. The s=
econd
point is still more curious. The reader will observe a mark of excision in =
the passage
as quoted by me. Well, here is how it runs in the original: "a damsel,
who, close behind a fine spring about half-way down the descent, and which =
had
once supplied the castle with water, was engaged in bleaching linen." A
man who gave in such copy would be discharged from the staff of a daily pap=
er.
Scott has forgotten to prepare the reader for the presence of the
"damsel"; he has forgotten to mention the spring and its relation=
to
the ruin; and now, face to face with his omission, instead of trying back a=
nd
starting fair, crams all this matter, tail foremost, into a single shamblin=
g sentence.
It is not merely bad English, or bad style; it is abominably bad narrative =
besides.
Certainly the contrast is remarkable; and it is
one that throws a strong light upon the subject of this paper. For here we =
have
a man of the finest creative instinct touching with perfect certainty and c=
harm
the romantic junctures of his story; and we find him utterly careless, almo=
st,
it would seem, incapable, in the technical matter of style, and not only
frequently weak, but frequently wrong in points of drama. In character part=
s,
indeed, and particularly in the Scotch, he was delicate, strong and truthfu=
l;
but the trite, obliterated features of too many of his heroes have already
wearied two generations of readers. At times his characters will speak with
something far beyond propriety with a true heroic note; but on the next page
they will be wading wearily forward with an ungrammatical and undramatic
rigmarole of words. The man who could conceive and write the character of E=
lspeth
of the Craigburnfoot,[34] as Scott has conceived and written it, had not on=
ly
splendid romantic, but splendid tragic gifts. How comes it, then, that he c=
ould
so often fob us off with languid, inarticulate twaddle?
It seems to me that the explanation is to be f=
ound
in the very quality of his surprising merits. As his books are play to the
reader, so were, they play to him. He conjured up the romantic with delight,
but he had hardly patience to describe it. He was a great day-dreamer, a se=
er
of fit and beautiful and humorous visions, but hardly a great artist; hardl=
y,
in the manful sense, an artist at all. He pleased himself, and so he pleases
us. Of the pleasures of his art he tasted fully; but of its toils and vigils
and distresses never man knew less. A great romantic--an idle child.
=
This essay first appeared in Longman's Magazine
for November 1882, Vol. I, pp. 69-79. Five years later it was published in =
the
volume Memories and Portraits (1887), followed by an article called A Humble
Remonstrance, which should really be read in connection with this essay, as=
it
is a continuation of the same line of thought. In the eternal conflict betw=
een
Romanticism and Realism, Stevenson was heart and soul with the former, and
fortunately he lived long enough to see the practical effects of his own
precepts and influence. When he began to write, Realism in fiction seemed to
have absolute control; when he died, a tremendous reaction in favor of the
historical romance had already set in, that reached its climax with the dea=
th
of the century. Stevenson's share in this Romantic revival was greater than=
that
of any other English writer, and as an English review remarked, if it had n=
ot
been for him most of the new authors would have been Howells and James young
men.
This paper was written at Davos in the winter =
of
1881-2, and in February, writing to Henley, the author said, "I have j=
ust
finished a paper, 'A Gossip on Romance,' in which I have tried to do, very =
popularly,
about one-half of the matter you wanted me to try. In a way, I have found an
answer to the question. But the subject was hardly fit for so chatty a pape=
r,
and it is all loose ends. If ever I do my book on the Art of Literature, I
shall gather them together and be clear." (Letters, I, 269). On Dec. 8,
1884--the same month in which A Humble Remonstrance was printed, Stevenson
wrote an interesting letter to Henry James, whose views on the art of ficti=
on were
naturally contrary to those of his friend. See Letters, I, 402.
[Note 1: Like a pig for truffles. See the Epil=
ogue
to Browning's Pacchiarotto etc., Stanza XVIII:--"Your product
is--truffles, you hunt with a pig!"]
[Note 2: The Malabar coast. A part of India.]<= o:p>
[Note 3: Jacobite. After James II was driven f=
rom
the throne in 1688, his supporters and those of his descendants were called=
Jacobites.
Jacobus is the Latin for James.]
[Note 4: John Rann or Jerry Abershaw. John Ran=
n I
cannot find. Louis Jeremiah (or Jerry) Abershaw was a highway robber, who
infested the roads near London; he was hung in 1795, when scarcely over
twenty-one years old.]
[Note 5: "Great North road." The road
that runs on the east of England up to Edinburgh. Stevenson yielded to the
charm that these words had for him, for he began a romance with the title, =
The
Great North Road, which however, he never finished. It was published as a f=
ragment
in The Illustrated London News, in 1895.]
[Note 6: What will he Do with It? One of
Bulwer-Lytton's novels, published in 1858.]
[Note 7: Since traced by many obliging
correspondents to the gallery of Charles Kingsley.]
[Note 8: Conduct is three parts of life. In
Literature and Dogma (1873) Matthew Arnold asserted with great emphasis, th=
at
conduct was three-fourths of life.]
[Note 9: The sight of a pleasant arbour. Possi=
bly
a reminiscence of the arbour in Pilgrim's Progress, where Christian fell
asleep, and lost his roll. "Now about the midway to the top of the hill
was a pleasant arbour."]
[Note 10: "Miching mallecho." Hamlet=
's
description of the meaning of the Dumb Show in the play-scene, Act III, Sc.=
2.
"Hidden treachery"--see any annotated edition of Hamlet.]
[Note 11: Burford Bridge ... Keats ... Endymio=
n ...
Nelson ... Emma ... the old Hawes Inn at the Queen's Ferry. Burford Bridge =
is
close to Dorking in Surrey, England: in the old inn, Keats wrote a part of =
his
poem Endymion (published 1818). The room where he composed is still on
exhibition. Two letters by Keats, which are exceedingly important to the
student of his art as a poet, were written from Burford Bridge in November
1817. See Colvin's edition of Keats's Letters, pp. 40-46.... "Emma&quo=
t;
is Lady Hamilton, whom Admiral Nelson loved.... Queen's Ferry (properly
Queensferry) is on the Firth of Forth, Scotland. See a few lines below in t=
he
text, where Stevenson gives the reference to the opening pages of Scott's n=
ovel
the Antiquary, which begins in the old inn at this place. See also page 105=
of
the text, and Stevenson's foot note, where he declares that he did make use=
of
Queensferry in his novel Kidnapped (1886)(Chapter XXVI).]
[Note 12: Since the above was written I have t=
ried
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
bluster 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 h=
ad
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. T=
his
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 romanc=
es,
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 immen=
se
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 (Othello, Act I=
I,
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 excitem=
ent,
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 whe=
re
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, unblushing French thief"; all he
means is that Dumas never hesitated to appropriate material wherever he fou=
nd
it, and work it into his romances.]
[Note 18: The living fame of Robinson Crusoe w=
ith
the discredit of Clarissa Harlowe. A strong contrast between the romance of
incident and the analytical novel. For remarks on Clarissa, see our Note 9 =
of Chapter
IV above.]
[Note 19: Byronism. About the time Lord Byron =
was
publishing Childe Harold (1812-1818) a tremendous wave of romantic melancho=
ly
swept over all the countries of Europe. Innumerable poems and romances deal=
ing
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...Dantès. 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 Or=
deal
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 i=
t is
romantic. Therein lies precisely the charm of this book for boyish minds; t=
he
details are given with such candour that it seems as if they must all be tr=
ue. 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 se=
a.
His first success was The Wreck of the Grosvenor (1876); The Sailor's Sweet=
heart,
more properly, A Sailor's Sweetheart, was published in 1877.]
[Note 26: Swiss Family Robinson. A German stor=
y,
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 Ver=
ne,
who died at Amiens, France, in 1904, wrote an immense number of romances,
which, translated into many languages, have delighted young readers all ove=
r the
world. The Mysterious Island is a sequel to Twenty Thousand Leagues under t=
he
Sea.]
[Note 28: Eugène de Rastignac. A charac=
ter
in Balzac's novel, Père 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, publis=
hed
in 1821. It was the cause of Cooper's writing The Pilot. See Cooper's prefa=
ce
to the latter novel.]
[Note 31: Guy Mannering. Also by Scott. Publis=
hed
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 fi=
ction,
very popular with an uncritical class of readers. Perhaps her best-known bo=
ok
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 Dickens's novel, Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-4).=
]
[Note 34: Elspeth of the Craigburnfoot. A
character in the Antiquary (1816).]
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 byw=
ord.
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 attitude of his express detractor=
s;
those who are very fond of dogs "but in their proper place"; who =
say
"poo' fellow, poo' fellow," and are themselves far poorer; who wh=
et
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, ha=
ve
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 aptitudes are hi=
s,
inherited frailties. Some things he at once views and understands, as thoug=
h 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.
The leading distinction[4] between dog and man,
after and perhaps before the different duration of their lives, is that the=
one
can speak and that the other cannot. The absence of the power of speech con=
fines
the dog in the development of his intellect. It hinders him from many
speculations, for words are the beginning of metaphysic. At the same blow it
saves him from many superstitions, and his silence has won for him a higher
name for virtue than his conduct justifies. The faults of the dog[5] are ma=
ny.
He is vainer than man, singularly greedy of notice, singularly intolerant of
ridicule, suspicious like the deaf, jealous to the degree of frenzy, and
radically devoid of truth. The day of an intelligent small dog is passed in=
the
manufacture and the laborious communication of falsehood; he lies with his
tail, he lies with his eye, he lies with his protesting paw; and when he
rattles his dish or scratches at the door his purpose is other than appears.
But he has some apology to offer for the vice. Many of the signs which form=
his
dialect have come to bear an arbitrary meaning, clearly understood both by =
his
master and himself; yet when a new want arises he must either invent a new
vehicle of meaning or wrest an old one to a different purpose; and this
necessity frequently recurring must tend to lessen his idea of the sanctity=
of
symbols. Meanwhile the dog is clear in his own conscience, and draws, with =
a human
nicety, the distinction between formal and essential truth. Of his punning
perversions, his legitimate dexterity with symbols, he is even vain; but wh=
en
he has told and been detected in a lie, there is not a hair upon his body b=
ut
confesses guilt. To a dog of gentlemanly feeling theft and falsehood are
disgraceful vices. The canine, like the human, gentleman demands in his
misdemeanours Montaigne's "je ne sais quoi de
genéréux."[6] He is never more than half ashamed of havi=
ng
barked or bitten; and for those faults into which he has been led by the de=
sire
to shine before a lady of his race, he retains, even under physical correct=
ion,
a share of pride. But to be caught lying, if he understands it, instantly
uncurls his fleece.
Just as among dull observers he preserves a na=
me
for truth, the dog has been credited with modesty. It is amazing how the us=
e of
language blunts the faculties of man---that because vainglory finds no vent=
in words,
creatures supplied with eyes have been unable to detect a fault so gross and
obvious. If a small spoiled dog were suddenly to be endowed with speech, he
would prate interminably, and still about himself; when we had friends, we
should be forced to lock him in a garret; and what with his whining jealous=
ies
and his foible for falsehood, in a year's time he would have gone far to we=
ary
out our love. I was about to compare him to Sir Willoughby Patterne,[7] but=
the
Patternes have a manlier sense of their own merits; and the parallel, besid=
es,
is ready. Hans Christian Andersen,[8] as we behold him in his startling
memoirs, thrilling from top to toe with an excruciating vanity, and scouting
even along the street for shadows of offence--here was the talking dog.
It is just this rage for consideration that has
betrayed the dog into his satellite position as the friend of man. The cat,=
an
animal of franker appetites, preserves his independence. But the dog, with =
one eye
ever on the audience, has been wheedled into slavery, and praised and patted
into the renunciation of his nature. Once he ceased hunting[9] and became m=
an's
plate-licker, the Rubicon was crossed. Thenceforth he was a gentleman of
leisure; and except the few whom we keep working, the whole race grew more =
and
more self-conscious, mannered and affected. The number of things that a sma=
ll
dog does naturally is strangely small. Enjoying better spirits and not crus=
hed under
material cares, he is far more theatrical than average man. His whole life,=
if
he be a dog of any pretension to gallantry, is spent in a vain show, and in=
the
hot pursuit of admiration. Take out your puppy for a walk, and you will find
the little ball of fur clumsy, stupid, bewildered, but natural. Let but a f=
ew
months pass, and when you repeat the process you will find nature buried in
convention. He will do nothing plainly; but the simplest processes of our
material life will all be bent into the forms of an elaborate and mysteriou=
s etiquette.
Instinct, says the fool, has awakened. But it is not so. Some dogs--some, at
the very least--if they be kept separate from others, remain quite natural;=
and
these, when at length they meet with a companion of experience, and have the
game explained to them, distinguish themselves by the severity of their
devotion to its rules. I wish I were allowed to tell a story which would
radiantly illuminate the point; but men, like dogs, have an elaborate and
mysterious etiquette. It is their bond of sympathy that both are the childr=
en
of convention.
The person, man or dog, who has a conscience is
eternally condemned to some degree of humbug; the sense of the law in their=
members[10]
fatally precipitates either towards a frozen and affected bearing. And the
converse is true; and in the elaborate and conscious manners of the dog, mo=
ral
opinions and the love of the ideal stand confessed. To follow for ten minut=
es
in the street some swaggering, canine cavalier, is to receive a lesson in
dramatic art and the cultured conduct of the body; in every act and gesture=
you
see him true to a refined conception; and the dullest cur, beholding him,
pricks up his ear and proceeds to imitate and parody that charming ease. Fo=
r to
be a high-mannered and high-minded gentleman, careless, affable, and gay, is
the inborn pretension of the dog. The large dog, so much lazier, so much mo=
re
weighed upon with matter, so majestic in repose, so beautiful in effort, is
born with the dramatic means to wholly represent the part. And it is more
pathetic and perhaps more instructive to consider the small dog in his
conscientious and imperfect efforts to outdo Sir Philip Sidney.[11] For the
ideal of the dog is feudal and religious;[12] the ever-present polytheism, =
the whip-bearing
Olympus of mankind, rules them on the one hand; on the other, their singular
difference of size and strength among themselves effectually prevents the
appearance of the democratic notion. Or we might more exactly compare their
society to the curious spectacle presented by a school--ushers, monitors, a=
nd
big and little boys--qualified by one circumstance, the introduction of the
other sex. In each, we should observe a somewhat similar tension of manner,=
and
somewhat similar points of honour. In each the larger animal keeps a
contemptuous good humour; in each the smaller annoys him with wasp-like
impudence, certain of practical immunity; in each we shall find a double li=
fe
producing double characters, and an excursive and noisy heroism combined wi=
th a
fair amount of practical timidity. I have known dogs, and I have known scho=
ol
heroes that, set aside the fur, could hardly have been told apart; and if we
desire to understand the chivalry of old, we must turn to the school playfi=
elds
or the dungheap where the dogs are trooping.
Woman, with the dog, has been long enfranchise=
d.
Incessant massacre of female innocents has changed the proportions of the s=
exes
and perverted their relations. Thus, when we regard the manners of the dog,=
we
see a romantic and monogamous animal, once perhaps as delicate as the cat, =
at
war with impossible conditions. Man has much to answer for; and the part he
plays is yet more damnable and parlous[13] than Corin's in the eyes of
Touchstone. But his intervention has at least created an imperial situation=
for
the rare surviving ladies. In that society they reign without a rival:
conscious queens; and in the only instance of a canine wife-beater that has
ever fallen under my notice, the criminal was somewhat excused by the
circumstances of his story. He is a little, very alert, well-bred, intellig=
ent
Skye, as black as a hat, with a wet bramble for a nose and two cairn-gorms[=
14]
for eyes. To the human observer, he is decidedly well-looking; but to the
ladies of his race he seems abhorrent. A thorough elaborate gentleman, of t=
he plume
and sword-knot order, he was born with the nice sense of gallantry to women=
. He
took at their hands the most outrageous treatment; I have heard him bleating
like a sheep, I have seen him streaming blood, and his ear tattered like a
regimental banner; and yet he would scorn to make reprisals. Nay more, when=
a
human lady upraised the contumelious whip against the very dame who had bee=
n so
cruelly misusing him, my little great-heart gave but one hoarse cry and fell
upon the tyrant tooth and nail. This is the tale of a soul's tragedy.[15] A=
fter
three years of unavailing chivalry, he suddenly, in one hour, threw off the
yoke of obligation; had he been Shakespeare he would then have written Troi=
lus
and Cressida[16] to brand the offending sex; but being only a little dog, he
began to bite them. The surprise of the ladies whom he attacked indicated t=
he
monstrosity of his offence; but he had fairly beaten off his better angel,
fairly committed moral suicide; for almost in the same hour, throwing aside=
the
last rags of decency, he proceeded to attack the aged also. The fact is wor=
th
remark, showing as it does, that ethical laws are common both to dogs and m=
en;
and that with both a single deliberate violation of the conscience loosens =
all.
"But while the lamp holds on to burn," says the paraphrase, "=
;the
greatest sinner may return."[17] I have been cheered to see symptoms of
effectual penitence in my sweet ruffian; and by the handling that he accept=
ed
uncomplainingly the other day from an indignant fair one, I begin to hope t=
he
period of Sturm und Drang[18] is closed.
All these little gentlemen are subtle casuists.
The duty to the female dog is plain; but where competing duties rise, down =
they
will sit and study them out like Jesuit confessors.[19] I knew another litt=
le
Skye, somewhat plain in manner and appearance, but a creature compact of am=
iability
and solid wisdom. His family going abroad for a winter, he was received for
that period by an uncle in the same city. The winter over, his own family h=
ome
again, and his own house (of which he was very proud) reopened, he found
himself in a dilemma between two conflicting duties of loyalty and gratitud=
e.
His old friends were not to be neglected, but it seemed hardly decent to de=
sert
the new. This was how he solved the problem. Every morning, as soon as the =
door
was opened, off posted Coolin to his uncle's, visited the children in the n=
ursery,
saluted the whole family, and was back at home in time for breakfast and his
bit of fish. Nor was this done without a sacrifice on his part, sharply fel=
t;
for he had to forego the particular honour and jewel of his day--his mornin=
g's
walk with my father. And perhaps, from this cause, he gradually wearied of =
and
relaxed the practice, and at length returned entirely to his ancient habits.
But the same decision served him in another and more distressing case of
divided duty, which happened not long after. He was not at all a kitchen do=
g, but
the cook had nursed him with unusual kindness during the distemper; and tho=
ugh
he did not adore her as he adored my father--although (born snob) he was
critically conscious of her position as "only a servant"--he still
cherished for her a special gratitude. Well, the cook left, and retired some
streets away to lodgings of her own; and there was Coolin in precisely the =
same
situation with any young gentleman who has had the inestimable benefit of a
faithful nurse. The canine conscience did not solve the problem with a poun=
d of
tea at Christmas. No longer content to pay a flying visit, it was the whole
forenoon that he dedicated to his solitary friend. And so, day by day, he
continued to comfort her solitude until (for some reason which I could never
understand and cannot approve) he was kept locked up to break him of the
graceful habit. Here, it is not the similarity, it is the difference, that =
is
worthy of remark; the clearly marked degrees of gratitude and the proportio=
nal
duration of his visits. Anything further removed from instinct it were hard=
to fancy;
and one is even stirred to a certain impatience with a character so destitu=
te
of spontaneity, so passionless in justice, and so priggishly obedient to the
voice of reason.
There are not many dogs like this good Coolin.=
and
not many people. But the type is one well marked, both in the human and the
canine family. Gallantry was not his aim, but a solid and somewhat oppressi=
ve respectability.
He was a sworn foe to the unusual and the conspicuous, a praiser of the gol=
den
mean, a kind of city uncle modified by Cheeryble.[20] And as he was precise=
and
conscientious in all the steps of his own blameless course, he looked for t=
he
same precision and an even greater gravity in the bearing of his deity, my
father. It was no sinecure to be Coolin's idol; he was exacting like a rigi=
d parent;
and at every sign of levity in the man whom he respected, he announced loud=
ly
the death of virtue and the proximate fall of the pillars of the earth.
I have called him a snob; but all dogs are so,
though in varying degrees. It is hard to follow their snobbery among
themselves; for though I think we can perceive distinctions of rank, we can=
not
grasp what is the criterion. Thus in Edinburgh, in a good part of the town,=
there
were several distinct societies or clubs that met in the morning to--the ph=
rase
is technical--to "rake the backets"[21] in a troop. A friend of m=
ine,
the master of three dogs, was one day surprised to observe that they had le=
ft
one club and joined another; but whether it was a rise or a fall, and the
result of an invitation or an expulsion, was more than he could guess. And =
this
illustrates pointedly our ignorance of the real life of dogs, their social
ambitions and their social hierarchies. At least, in their dealings with men
they are not only conscious of sex, but of the difference of station. And t=
hat
in the most snobbish manner; for the poor man's dog is not offended by the
notice of the rich, and keeps all his ugly feeling for those poorer or more
ragged than his master. And again, for every station they have an ideal of
behaviour, to which the master, under pain of derogation, will do wisely to
conform. How often has not a cold glance of an eye informed me that my dog =
was
disappointed; and how much more gladly would he not have taken a beating th=
an
to be thus wounded in the seat of piety!
I knew one disrespectable dog. He was far like=
r a
cat; cared little or nothing for men, with whom he merely coexisted as we do
with cattle, and was entirely devoted to the art of poaching. A house would=
not
hold him, and to live in a town was what he refused. He led, I believe, a l=
ife
of troubled but genuine pleasure, and perished beyond all question in a tra=
p.
But this was an exception, a marked reversion to the ancestral type; like t=
he
hairy human infant. The true dog of the nineteenth century, to judge by the
remainder of my fairly large acquaintance, is in love with respectability. A
street-dog was once adopted by a lady. While still an Arab, he had done as
Arabs do, gambolling in the mud, charging into butchers' stalls, a cat-hunt=
er,
a sturdy beggar, a common rogue and vagabond; but with his rise into societ=
y he
laid aside these inconsistent pleasures. He stole no more, he hunted no more
cats; and conscious of his collar he ignored his old companions. Yet the ca=
nine
upper class was never brought to recognize the upstart, and from that hour,
except for human countenance, he was alone. Friendless, shorn of his sports=
and
the habits of a lifetime, he still lived in a glory of happiness, content w=
ith
his acquired respectability, and with no care but to support it solemnly. A=
re
we to condemn or praise this self-made dog! We praise his human brother. An=
d thus
to conquer vicious habits is as rare with dogs as with men. With the more p=
art,
for all their scruple-mongering and moral thought, the vices that are born =
with
them remain invincible throughout; and they live all their years, glorying =
in
their virtues, but still the slaves of their defects. Thus the sage Coolin =
was
a thief to the last; among a thousand peccadilloes, a whole goose and a who=
le
cold leg of mutton lay upon his conscience; but Woggs,[22] whose soul's
shipwreck in the matter of gallantry I have recounted above, has only twice
been known to steal, and has often nobly conquered the temptation. The eigh=
th
is his favourite commandment. There is something painfully human in these u=
nequal
virtues and mortal frailties of the best. Still more painful is the bearing=
of
those "stammering professors"[23] in the house of sickness and un=
der
the terror of death. It is beyond a doubt to me that, somehow or other, the=
dog
connects together, or confounds, the uneasiness of sickness and the
consciousness of guilt. To the pains of the body he often adds the tortures=
of
the conscience; and at these times his haggard protestations form, in regar=
d to
the human deathbed, a dreadful parody or parallel.
I once supposed that I had found an inverse
relation between the double etiquette which dogs obey; and that those who w=
ere
most addicted to the showy street life among other dogs were less careful in
the practice of home virtues for the tyrant man. But the female dog, that m=
ass
of carneying[24] affectations, shines equally in either sphere; rules her r=
ough
posse of attendant swains with unwearying tact and gusto; and with her mast=
er
and mistress pushes the arts of insinuation to their crowning point. The
attention of man and the regard of other dogs flatter (it would thus appear)
the same sensibility; but perhaps, if we could read the canine heart, they =
would
be found to flatter it in very marked degrees. Dogs live with man as courti=
ers
round a monarch, steeped in the flattery of his notice and enriched with
sinecures. To push their favour in this world of pickings and caresses is,
perhaps, the business of their lives; and their joys may lie outside. I am =
in
despair at our persistent ignorance. I read in the lives of our companions =
the
same processes of reason, the same antique and fatal conflicts of the right
against the wrong, and of unbitted nature with too rigid custom; I see them
with our weaknesses, vain, false, inconstant against appetite, and with our=
one
stalk of virtue, devoted to the dream of an ideal; and yet, as they hurry b=
y me
on the street with tail in air, or come singly to solicit my regard, I must=
own
the secret purport of their lives is still inscrutable to man. Is man the
friend, or is he the patron only? Have they indeed forgotten nature's voice=
? or
are those moments snatched from courtiership when they touch noses with the=
tinker's
mongrel, the brief reward and pleasure of their artificial lives? Doubtless,
when man shares with his dog the toils of a profession and the pleasures of=
an
art, as with the shepherd or the poacher, the affection warms and strengthe=
ns
till it fills the soul. But doubtless, also, the masters are, in many cases,
the object of a merely interested cultus, sitting aloft like Louis
Quatorze,[25] giving and receiving flattery and favour; and the dogs, like =
the
majority of men, have but forgotten their true existence and become the dup=
es
of their ambition.
=
This article originally appeared in The English
Illustrated Magazine for May 1883, Vol. I, pp. 300-305. It was accompanied =
with
illustrations by Randolph Caldecott. The essay was later included in the vo=
lume
Memories and Portraits (1887).
The astonishing fidelity and devotion of the d=
og
to his master have certainly been in part repaid by men of letters in all
times. A valuable essay might be written on the Dog's Place in Literature; =
in the
poetry of the East, hundreds of years before Christ, the dog's faithfulness=
was
more than once celebrated. One of the most marvellous passages in Homer's
Odyssey is the recognition of the ragged Ulysses by the noble old dog, who =
dies
of joy. In recent years, since the publication of Dr. John Brown's Rab and =
his
Friends (1858), the dog has approached an apotheosis. Among innumerable
sketches and stories with canine heroes may be mentioned Bret Harte's
extraordinary portrait of Boonder: M. Maeterlinck's essay on dogs: Richard
Harding Davis's The Bar Sinister: Jack London's The Call of the Wild: and b=
est
of all, Alfred Ollivant's splendid story Bob, Son of Battle (1898) which has
every indication of becoming an English classic. It is a pity that dogs can=
not
read.
[Note 1: The morals of dog-kind. Stevenson
discusses this subject again in his essay Pulvis et Umbra (1888).]
[Note 2: Who whet the knife of the vivisection=
ist
or heat his oven. Stevenson was so sympathetic by nature that once, seeing a
man beating a dog, he interfered, crying, "It's not your dog, it's God=
's
dog." On the subject of vivisection, however his biographer says: &quo=
t;It
must be laid to the credit of his reason and the firm balance of his judgme=
nt that
although vivisection was a subject he could not endure even to have mention=
ed,
yet, with all his imagination and sensibility, he never ranged himself among
the opponents of this method of inquiry, provided, of course, it was limite=
d,
as in England, with the utmost rigour possible."--Balfour's Life, II, =
217.
The two most powerful opponents of vivisection among Stevenson's contempora=
ries
were Ruskin and Browning. The former resigned the Professorship of Poetry a=
t Oxford
because vivisection was permitted at the University: and the latter in two
poems Tray and Arcades Ambo treated the vivisectionists with contempt, impl=
ying
that they were cowards. In Bernard Shaw's clever novel Cashel Byron's
Profession, The prize-fighter maintains that his profession is more honorab=
le
than that of a man who bakes dogs in an oven. This novel, by the way, which=
he
read in the winter of 1887-88, made an extraordinary impression on Stevenso=
n;
he recognised its author's originality and cleverness immediately, and was
filled with curiosity as to what kind of person this Shaw might be. "T=
ell
me more of the inimitable author," he cried. It is a pity that Stevens=
on
did not live to see the vogue of Shaw as a dramatist, for the latter's early
novels produced practically no impression on the public. See Stevenson's hi=
ghly
entertaining letter to William Archer, Letters, II, 107.]
[Note 3: "Trailing clouds of glory."
Trailing with him clouds of glory. This passage, from Wordsworth's Ode on t=
he
Intimations of Immortality (1807), was a favorite one with Stevenson, and he
quotes it several times in various essays.]
[Note 4: The leading distinction. Those who kn=
ow
dogs will fully agree with Stevenson here.]
[Note 5: The faults of the dog. All lovers of =
dogs
will by no means agree with Stevenson in his enumeration of canine sins.]
[Note 6: Montaigne's "je ne sais quoi de
généreux." A bit of generosity. Montaigne's Essays (1580)
had an enormous influence on Stevenson, as they have had on nearly all lite=
rary
men for three hundred years. See his article in this volume, Books Which Sa=
ve Influenced
Me, and the discussion of the "personal essay" in our general
Introduction.]
[Note 7: Sir Willoughby Patterne. Again a
character in Meredith's Egoist. See our Note 47 of Chapter IV above.]
[Note 8: Hans Christian Andersen. A Danish wri=
ter
of prodigious popularity: born 1805, died 1875. His books were translated i=
nto
many languages. The "memoirs" Stevenson refers to, were called The
Story of My Life, in which the author brought the narrative only so far as =
1847:
it was, however, finished by another hand. He is well known to juvenile rea=
ders
by his Stories for Children.]
[Note 9: Once he ceased hunting and became man=
's
plate-licker, the Rubicon was crossed. For a reversion to type, where the
plate-licker goes back to hunting, see Mr. London's powerful story, The Cal=
l of
the Wild. ... The "Rubicon" was a small stream separating Cisalpi=
ne Gaul
from Italy. Caesar crossed it in 49 B. C, thus taking a decisive step in
deliberately advancing into Italy. "Plutarch, in his life of Caesar, m=
akes
quite a dramatic scene out of the crossing of the Rubicon. Caesar does not =
even
mention it."--B. Perrin's ed. of Caesar's Civil War, p. 142.]
[Note 10: The law in their members. Romans, VI=
I,
23. "But I see another law in my members."]
[Note 11: Sir Philip Sidney. The stainless Kni=
ght
of Elizabeth's Court, born 1554, died 1586. The pages of history afford no
better illustration of the "gentleman and the scholar." Poet,
romancer, critic, courtier, soldier, his beautiful life was crowned by a no=
ble death.]
[Note 12: The ideal of the dog is feudal and
religious. Maeterlinck says the dog is the only being who has found and is
absolutely sure of his God.]
[Note 13: Damnable and parlous than Corin's in=
the
eyes of Touchstone. See As You Like It, Act III, Sc. 2. "Sin is damnat=
ion:
Thou art in a parlous state, shepherd."]
[Note 14: Cairn-gorms. Brown or yellow quartz,
found in the mountain of Cairngorm, Scotland, over 4000 feet high. Stevenso=
n's
own dog, "Woggs" or "Bogue," was a black Skye terrier, =
whom
the author seems here to have in mind. See Note 20 of this Chapter, below,
"Woggs."]
[Note 15: A Soul's Tragedy. The title of a tra=
gedy
by Browning, published in 1846.]
[Note 16: Troilus and Cressida. One of the most
bitter and cynical plays ever written; practically never seen on the English
stage, it was successfully revived at Berlin, in September 1904.]
[Note 17: "While the lamp holds on to burn
... the greatest sinner may return." From a hymn by Isaac Watts
(1674-1748), beginning
"Life is the time to serve the Lord, The time to insure the great
reward; And while the l=
amp
holds out to burn, The =
vilest
sinner may return."
Although this stanza has no remarkable merit, =
many
of Watts's hymns are genuine poetry.]
[Note 18: Sturm und Drang. This German express=
ion
has been well translated "Storm and Stress." It was applied to the
literature in Germany (and in Europe) the latter part of the XVIIIth centur=
y,
which was characterised by emotional excess of all kinds. A typical book of=
the
period was Goethe's Sorrows of Werther (Die Leiden des jungen Werthers, 177=
4).
The expression is also often applied to the period of adolescence in the li=
fe
of the individual.]
[Note 19: Jesuit confessors. The Jesuits, or
Society of Jesus, one of the most famous religious orders of the Roman Cath=
olic
Church, was founded in 1534 by Ignatius of Loyola and a few others.]
[Note 20: Modified by Cheeryble. The Cheeryble
Brothers are characters in Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby (1838-9). Dickens sa=
id
in his Preface, "Those who take an interest in this tale, will be glad=
to learn
that the BROTHERS CHEERYBLE live: that their liberal charity, their singlen=
ess
of heart, their noble nature ... are no creations of the Author's brain.&qu=
ot;]
[Note 21: "Rake the backets." The
"backet" is a small, square, wooden trough generally used for ash=
es
and waste.]
[Note 22: Woggs (and Note: Walter, Watty, Wogg=
y,
Woggs, Wog, and lastly Bogue; under which last name he fell in battle some
twelve months ago. Glory was his aim and he attained it; for his icon, by t=
he hand
of Caldecott, now lies among the treasures of the nation.) Stevenson's
well-beloved black Skye terrier. See Balfour's Life, I, 212, 223. Stevenson=
was
so deeply affected by Woggs's death that he could not bear ever to own anot=
her
dog. A Latin inscription was placed on his tombstone.... This Note was adde=
d in
1887, when the essay appeared in Memories and Portraits. "Icon" m=
eans
image (cf. iconoclast); the word has lately become familiar through the rel=
igious
use of icons by the Russians in the war with Japan. Randolph Caldecott
(1846-1886) was a well-known artist and prominent contributor of sketches to
illustrated magazines.]
[Note 23: "Stammering Professors." A
"professor" here means simply a professing Christian. Stevenson
alludes to the fact that dogs howl fearfully if some one in the house is
dying.]
[Note 24: "Carneying." This means
coaxing, wheedling.]
[Note 25: Louis Quatorze. Louis XIV of France,=
who
died in 1715, after a reign of 72 years, the longest reign of any monarch i=
n history.
His absolutism and complete disregard of the people unconsciously prepared =
the
way for the French Revolution in 1789.]
=
All through my boyhood and youth, I was known =
and
pointed out for the pattern of an idler;[1] and yet I was always busy on my=
own
private end, which was to learn to write. I kept always two books in my poc=
ket,
one to read, one to write in. As I walked, my mind was busy fitting what I =
saw
with appropriate words; when I sat by the roadside, I would either read, or=
a
pencil and a penny version-book would be in my hand, to note down the featu=
res
of the scene or commemorate some halting stanzas. Thus I lived with words. =
And
what I thus wrote was for no ulterior use, it was written consciously for
practice. It was not so much that I wished to be an author (though I wished
that too) as that I had vowed that I would learn to write. That was a profi=
ciency
that tempted me; and I practised to acquire it, as men learn to whittle, in=
a
wager with myself. Description was the principal field of my exercise; for =
to
any one with senses there is always something worth describing, and town and
country are but one continuous subject. But I worked in other ways also; of=
ten
accompanied my walks with dramatic dialogues, in which I played many parts;=
and
often exercised myself in writing down conversations from memory.
This was all excellent, no doubt; so were the
diaries I sometimes tried to keep, but always and very speedily discarded,
finding them a school of posturing[2] and melancholy self-deception. And yet
this was not the most efficient part of my training. Good though it was, it=
only
taught me (so far as I have learned them at all) the lower and less
intellectual elements of the art, the choice of the essential note and the
right word: things that to a happier constitution had perhaps come by natur=
e.
And regarded as training, it had one grave defect; for it set me no standar=
d of
achievement. So that there was perhaps more profit, as there was certainly =
more
effort, in my secret labours at home. Whenever I read a book or a passage t=
hat
particularly pleased me, in which a thing was said or an effect rendered wi=
th propriety,
in which there was either some conspicuous force or some happy distinction =
in
the style, I must sit down at once and set myself to ape that quality. I was
unsuccessful, and I knew it; and tried again, and was again unsuccessful and
always unsuccessful; but at least in these vain bouts, I got some practice =
in
rhythm, in harmony, in construction and the co-ordination of parts. I have =
thus
played the sedulous ape to Hazlitt, to Lamb, to Wordsworth, to Sir Thomas
Browne, to Defoe, to Hawthorne, to Montaigne, to Baudelaire and to Obermann=
.[3]
I remember one of these monkey tricks, which was called The Vanity of Moral=
s:
it was to have had a second part, The Vanity of Knowledge; and as I had nei=
ther
morality nor scholarship, the names were apt; but the second part was never
attempted, and the first part was written (which is my reason for recalling=
it,
ghostlike, from its ashes) no less than three times: first in the manner of
Hazlitt, second in the manner of Ruskin,[4] who had cast on me a passing sp=
ell,
and third, in a laborious pasticcio of Sir Thomas Browne. So with my other
works: Cain, an epic, was (save the mark!) an imitation of Sordello: Robin
Hood, a tale in verse, took an eclectic middle course among the fields of
Keats, Chaucer and Morris: in Monmouth, a tragedy, I reclined on the bosom =
of
Mr. Swinburne; in my innumerable gouty-footed lyrics, I followed many maste=
rs;
in the first draft of The King's Pardon, a tragedy, I was on the trail of no
lesser man than John Webster; in the second draft of the same piece, with s=
taggering
versatility, I had shifted my allegiance to Congreve, and of course conceiv=
ed
my fable in a less serious vein--for it was not Congreve's verse, it was his
exquisite prose, that I admired and sought to copy. Even at the age of thir=
teen
I had tried to do justice to the inhabitants of the famous city of Peebles[=
5]
in the style of the Book of Snobs. So I might go on for ever, through all m=
y abortive
novels, and down to my later plays,[6] of which I think more tenderly, for =
they
were not only conceived at first under the bracing influence of old Dumas, =
but
have met with, resurrections: one, strangely bettered by another hand, came=
on
the stage itself and was played by bodily actors; the other, originally kno=
wn
as Semiramis: a Tragedy, I have observed on bookstalls under the alias of
Prince Otto. But enough has been said to show by what arts of impersonation=
, and
in what purely ventriloquial efforts I first saw my words on paper.
That, like it or not, is the way to learn to
write; whether I have profited or not, that is the way. It was so Keats
learned,[7] and there was never a finer temperament for literature than
Keats's; it was so, if we could trace it out, that all men have learned; and
that is why a revival of letters is always accompanied or heralded by a cast
back to earlier and fresher models. Perhaps I hear someone cry out: But thi=
s is
not the way to be original! It is not; nor is there any way but to be born =
so.
Nor yet, if you are born original, is there anything in this training that
shall clip the wings of your originality. There can be none more original t=
han
Montaigne,[8] neither could any be more unlike Cicero; yet no craftsman can
fail to see how much the one must have tried in his time to imitate the oth=
er. Burns[9]
is the very type of a prime force in letters: he was of all men the most
imitative. Shakespeare himself, the imperial, proceeds directly from a scho=
ol.
It is only from a school that we can expect to have good writers; it is alm=
ost
invariably from a school that great writers, these lawless exceptions, issu=
e.
Nor is there anything here that should astonish the considerate. Before he =
can
tell what cadences he truly prefers, the student should have tried all that=
are
possible; before he can choose and preserve a fitting key of words, he shou=
ld long
have practised the literary scales;[10] and it is only after years of such
gymnastic that he can sit down at last, legions of words swarming to his ca=
ll,
dozens of turns of phrase simultaneously bidding for his choice, and he him=
self
knowing what he wants to do and (within the narrow limit of a man's ability)
able to do it.
And it is the great point of these imitations =
that
there still shines beyond the student's reach his inimitable model. Let him=
try
as he please, he is still sure of failure; and it is a very old and a very =
true
saying that failure is the only highroad to success. I must have had some
disposition to learn; for I clear-sightedly condemned my own performances. I
liked doing them indeed; but when they were done, I could see they were
rubbish. In consequence, I very rarely showed them even to my friends; and =
such
friends as I chose to be my confidants I must have chosen well, for they had
the friendliness to be quite plain with me. "Padding," said one.
Another wrote: "I cannot understand why you do lyrics so badly." =
No
more could I! Thrice I put myself in the way of a more authoritative rebuff=
, by
sending a paper to a magazine. These were returned; and I was not surprised=
nor
even pained. If they had not been looked at, as (like all amateurs) I suspe=
cted
was the case, there was no good in repeating the experiment; if they had be=
en looked
at--well, then I had not yet learned to write, and I must keep on learning =
and
living. Lastly, I had a piece of good fortune which is the occasion of this
paper, and by which I was able to see my literature in print, and to measure
experimentally how far I stood from the favour of the public.
The Speculative Society is a body of some
antiquity, and has counted among its members Scott, Brougham, Jeffrey, Horn=
er,
Benjamin Constant, Robert Emmet, and many a legal and local celebrity besid=
es.
By an accident, variously explained, it has its rooms in the very buildings=
of
the University of Edinburgh: a hall, Turkey-carpeted, hung with pictures,
looking, when lighted up at night with fire and candle, like some goodly
dining-room; a passage-like library, walled with books in their wire cages;=
and
a corridor with a fireplace, benches, a table, many prints of famous member=
s,
and a mural tablet to the virtues of a former secretary. Here a member can =
warm
himself and loaf and read; here, in defiance of Senatus-consults, he can sm=
oke.
The Senatus looks askance at these privileges; looks even with a somewhat
vinegar aspect on the whole society; which argues a lack of proportion in t=
he
learned mind, for the world, we may be sure, will prize far higher this hau=
nt of
dead lions than all the living dogs of the professorate.
I sat one December morning in the library of t=
he
Speculative; a very humble-minded youth, though it was a virtue I never had
much credit for; yet proud of my privileges as a member of the Spec.; proud=
of
the pipe I was smoking in the teeth of the Senatus; and in particular, prou=
d of
being in the next room to three very distinguished students, who were then
conversing beside the corridor fire. One of these has now his name on the b=
ack
of several volumes, and his voice, I learn, is influential in the law court=
s.
Of the death of the second, you have just been reading what I had to say. A=
nd
the third also has escaped out of that battle of life in which be fought so
hard, it may be so unwisely. They were all three, as I have said, notable
students; but this was the most conspicuous. Wealthy, handsome, ambitious, =
adventurous,
diplomatic, a reader of Balzac, and of all men that I have known, the most =
like
to one of Balzac's characters, he led a life, and was attended by an ill
fortune, that could be properly set forth only in the Comédie Humain=
e.
He had then his eye on Parliament; and soon after the time of which I write=
, he
made a showy speech at a political dinner, was cried up to heaven next day =
in
the Courant, and the day after was dashed lower than earth with a charge of
plagiarism in the Scotsman. Report would have it (I daresay, very wrongly) =
that
he was betrayed by one in whom he particularly trusted, and that the author=
of
the charge had learned its truth from his own lips. Thus, at least, he was =
up
one day on a pinnacle, admired and envied by all; and the next, though still
but a boy, he was publicly disgraced. The blow would have broken a less fin=
ely
tempered spirit; and even him I suppose it rendered reckless; for he took
flight to London, and there, in a fast club, disposed of the bulk of his co=
nsiderable
patrimony in the space of one winter. For years thereafter he lived I know =
not
how; always well dressed, always in good hotels and good society, always wi=
th
empty pockets. The charm of his manner may have stood him in good stead; but
though my own manners are very agreeable, I have never found in them a sour=
ce
of livelihood; and to explain the miracle of his continued existence, I must
fall back upon the theory of the philosopher, that in his case, as in all of
the same kind, "there was a suffering relative in the background."=
; From
this genteel eclipse he reappeared upon the scene, and presently sought me =
out
in the character of a generous editor. It is in this part that I best remem=
ber
him; tall, slender, with a not ungraceful stoop; looking quite like a refin=
ed
gentleman, and quite like an urbane adventurer; smiling with an engaging
ambiguity; cocking at you one peaked eyebrow with a great appearance of
finesse; speaking low and sweet and thick, with a touch of burr; telling
strange tales with singular deliberation and, to a patient listener, excell=
ent
effect. After all these ups and downs, he seemed still, like the rich stude=
nt that
he was of yore, to breathe of money; seemed still perfectly sure of himself=
and
certain of his end. Yet he was then upon the brink of his last overthrow. He
had set himself to found the strangest thing in our society: one of those
periodical sheets from which men suppose themselves to learn opinions; in w=
hich
young gentlemen from the universities are encouraged, at so much a line, to
garble facts, insult foreign nations and calumniate private individuals; and
which are now the source of glory, so that if a man's name be often enough =
printed
there, he becomes a kind of demigod; and people will pardon him when he tal=
ks
back and forth, as they do for Mr. Gladstone; and crowd him to suffocation =
on
railway platforms, as they did the other day to General Boulanger; and buy =
his
literary works, as I hope you have just done for me. Our fathers, when they
were upon some great enterprise, would sacrifice a life; building, it may b=
e, a
favourite slave into the foundations of their palace. It was with his own l=
ife that
my companion disarmed the envy of the gods. He fought his paper single-hand=
ed;
trusting no one, for he was something of a cynic; up early and down late, f=
or
he was nothing of a sluggard; daily earwigging influential men, for he was a
master of ingratiation. In that slender and silken fellow there must have b=
een
a rare vein of courage, that he should thus have died at his employment; an=
d doubtless
ambition spoke loudly in his ear, and doubtless love also, for it seems the=
re
was a marriage in his view had he succeeded. But he died, and his paper died
after him; and of all this grace, and tact, and courage, it must seem to our
blind eyes as if there had come literally nothing.
These three students sat, as I was saying, in =
the
corridor, under the mural tablet that records the virtues of Machean, the
former secretary. We would often smile at that ineloquent memorial, and tho=
ught
it a poor thing to come into the world at all and leave no more behind one =
than
Machean. And yet of these three, two are gone and have left less; and this
book, perhaps, when it is old and foxy, and some one picks it up in a corne=
r of
a book-shop, and glances through it, smiling at the old, graceless turns of
speech, and perhaps for the love of Alma Mater (which may be still extant a=
nd
flourishing) buys it, not without haggling, for some pence--this book may a=
lone
preserve a memory of James Walter Ferrier and Robert Glasgow Brown.
Their thoughts ran very differently on that
December morning; they were all on fire with ambition; and when they had ca=
lled
me in to them, and made me a sharer in their design, I too became drunken w=
ith pride
and hope. We were to found a University magazine. A pair of little, active
brothers--Livingstone by name, great skippers on the foot, great rubbers of=
the
hands, who kept a book-shop over against the University building--had been
debauched to play the part of publishers. We four were to be conjunct edito=
rs,
and, what was the main point of the concern, to print our own works; while,=
by
every rule of arithmetic--that flatterer of credulity--the adventure must s=
ucceed
and bring great profit. Well, well: it was a bright vision. I went home that
morning walking upon air. To have been chosen by these three distinguished
students was to me the most unspeakable advance; it was my first draught of
consideration; it reconciled me to myself and to my fellow-men; and as I
steered round the railings at the Tron, I could not withhold my lips from
smiling publicly. Yet, in the bottom of my heart, I knew that magazine woul=
d be
a grim fiasco; I knew it would not be worth reading; I knew, even if it wer=
e,
that nobody would read it; and I kept wondering, how I should be able, upon=
my
compact income of twelve pounds per annum, payable monthly, to meet my shar=
e in
the expense. It was a comfortable thought to me that I had a father.
The magazine appeared, in a yellow cover which=
was
the best part of it, for at least it was unassuming; it ran four months in
undisturbed obscurity, and died without a gasp. The first number was edited=
by
all four of us with prodigious bustle; the second fell principally into the
hands of Ferrier and me; the third I edited alone; and it has long been a
solemn question who it was that edited the fourth. It would perhaps be still
more difficult to say who read it. Poor yellow sheet, that looked so hopefu=
lly
in the Livingstones' window! Poor, harmless paper, that might have gone to
print a Shakespeare on, and was instead so clumsily defaced with nonsense! =
And,
shall I say, Poor Editors? I cannot pity myself, to whom it was all pure ga=
in.
It was no news to me, but only the wholesome confirmation of my judgment, w=
hen the
magazine struggled into half-birth, and instantly sickened and subsided into
night. I had sent a copy to the lady with whom my heart was at that time
somewhat engaged, and who did all that in her lay to break it; and she, with
some tact, passed over the gift and my cherished contributions in silence. I
will not say that I was pleased at this; but I will tell her now, if by any
chance she takes up the work of her former servant, that I thought the bett=
er
of her taste. I cleared the decks after this lost engagement; had the neces=
sary
interview with my father, which passed off not amiss; paid over my share of=
the
expense to the two little, active brothers, who rubbed their hands as much,=
but
methought skipped rather less than formerly, having perhaps, these two also,
embarked upon the enterprise with some graceful illusions; and then, review=
ing
the whole episode, I told myself that the time was not yet ripe, nor the man
ready; and to work I went again with my penny version-books, having fallen =
back
in one day from the printed author to the manuscript student.
=
From this defunct periodical I am going to rep=
rint
one of my own papers. The poor little piece is all tail-foremost. I have do=
ne
my best to straighten its array, I have pruned it fearlessly, and it remains
invertebrate and wordy. No self-respecting magazine would print the thing; =
and
here you behold it in a bound volume, not for any worth of its own, but for=
the
sake of the man whom it purports dimly to represent and some of whose sayin=
gs
it preserves; so that in this volume of Memories and Portraits, Robert Youn=
g,
the Swanston gardener, may stand alongside of John Todd, the Swanston sheph=
erd.
Not that John and Robert drew very close together in their lives; for John =
was rough,
he smelt of the windy brae; and Robert was gentle, and smacked of the garde=
n in
the hollow. Perhaps it is to my shame that I liked John the better of the t=
wo;
he had grit and dash, and that salt of the Old Adam that pleases men with a=
ny
savage inheritance of blood; and he was a wayfarer besides, and took my gip=
sy
fancy. But however that may be, and however Robert's profile may be blurred=
in
the boyish sketch that follows, he was a man of a most quaint and beautiful
nature, whom, if it were possible to recast a piece of work so old, I shoul=
d like
well to draw again with a maturer touch. And as I think of him and of John,=
I
wonder in what other country two such men would be found dwelling together,=
in
a hamlet of some twenty cottages, in the woody fold of a green hill.
=
This article made its first appearance in the
volume Memories and Portraits (1887). It was divided into three parts. The
interest of this essay is almost wholly autobiographical, telling us, with =
more
or less seriousness, how its author "learned to write." After
Stevenson became famous, this confession attracted universal attention, and=
is now
one of the best-known of all his compositions. Many youthful aspirants for
literary fame have been moved by its perusal to adopt a similar method; but
while Stevenson's system, if faithfully followed, would doubtless correct m=
any
faults, it would not of itself enable a man to write another Aes Triplex or
Treasure Island. It was genius, not industry, that placed Stevenson in Engl=
ish
literature.
[Note 1: Pattern of an Idler. See his essay in
this volume, An Apology for Idlers.]
[Note 2: A school of posturing. It is a nice
psychological question whether or not it is possible for one to write a dia=
ry with
absolutely no thought of its being read by some one else.]
[Note 3: Hazlitt, to Lamb, to Wordsworth, to S=
ir
Thomas Browne, to Defoe, to Hawthorne, to Montaigne, to Beaudelaire, and to
Obermann. For Hazlitt, see Note 19 of Chapter II above. Charles Lamb (1775-=
1834),
author of the delightful Essays of Elia (1822-24), the tone of which book is
often echoed in Stevenson's essays.... Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682), regar=
ded
by many as the greatest prose writer of the seventeenth century; his best b=
ooks
are Religio Medici (the religion of a physician), 1642, and Urn Burial (165=
8).
The 300th anniversary of his birth was widely celebrated on 19 October 1905=
....
Daniel Defoe (1661-1731), an enormously prolific writer; his first important
novel, Robinson Crusoe (followed by many others) was written when he was 58
years old.... Nathaniel Hawthorne, the greatest literary artist that America
has ever produced was born 4 July 1804, and died in 1864. His best novel (t=
he
finest in American Literature) was The Scarlet Letter (1850).... Montaigne.
Stevenson was heavily indebted to this wonderful genius. See Note 4 of Chap=
ter
VI above. ... Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) wrote the brilliant and decade=
nt Fleurs
du Mai (1857-61). He translated Poe into French, and was partly responsible=
for
Poe's immense vogue in France. Had Baudelaire's French followers possessed =
the
power of their master, we should be able to forgive them for writing....
Obermann. Òbermann is the title of a story by the French writer Etie=
nne
Pivert de Sénancour (1770-1846). The book, which appeared in 1804, is
full of vague melancholy, in the Werther fashion, and is more of a
psychological study than a novel. In recent years, Amiel's Journal and Sien=
kiewicz's
Without Dogma belong to the same school of literature. Matthew Arnold was f=
ond
of quoting from Sénancour's Obermann.]
[Note 4: Ruskin ... Pasticcio ... Bordello ...
Morris ... Swinburne ... John Webster ... Congreve. These names exhibit the
astonishing variety of Stevenson's youthful attempts, for they represent ne=
arly
every possible style of composition. John Ruskin (1819-1900) exercised a
greater influence thirty years ago than he does to-day Stevenson in the wor=
ds
"a passing spell," seems to apologise for having been influenced =
by
him at all.... Pasticcio, an Italian word, meaning "pie": Swinbur=
ne
uses it in the sense of "medley," which is about the same as its
significance here. Sordello: Stevenson naturally accompanies this statement
with a parenthetical exclamation. Sordello, published in 1840, is the most
obscure of all Browning's poems, and for many years blinded critics to the
poet's genius. Innumerable are the witticisms aimed at this opaque work. Se=
e,
for example, W. Sharp's Life of Browning ... William Morris (1834-96), auth=
or
of the Earthly Paradise (1868-70): for his position and influence in XIXth
century literature see H.A. Beers, History of English Romanticism, Vol. II.=
...
Algernon Charles Swinburne, born 1837, generally regarded (1906) as England=
's
foremost living poet, is famous chiefly for the melodies of his verse. His
influence seems to be steadily declining and he is certainly not so much re=
ad
as formerly.... For John Webster and Congreve, see Notes 37 and 26 of Chapt=
er
IV above.]
[Note 5: City of Peebles in the style of the B=
ook
of Snobs. Thackeray's Book of Snobs was published in 1848. Peebles is the c=
ounty
town of Peebles County in the South of Scotland.]
[Note 6: My later plays, etc. Stevenson's four
plays were not successful. They were all written in collaboration with W.E.
Henley. Deacon Brodie was printed in 1880: Admiral Guinea and Beau Austin in
1884: Macaire in 1885. In 1892, the first three were published in one volum=
e,
under the title Three Plays: In 1896 all four appeared in a volume called F=
our
Plays. At the time the essay A College Magazine was published, only one of
these plays had been acted, Deacon Brodie, to which Stevenson refers in our
text. This "came on the stage itself and was played by bodily actors&q=
uot;
at Pullan's Theatre of Varieties, Bradford, England, 28 December 1882, and =
in March
1883 at Her Majesty's Theatre, Aberdeen, "when it was styled a 'New Sc=
otch
National Drama.'"--Prideaux, Bibliography, p. 10. It was later produce=
d at
Prince's Theatre, London, 2 July 1884, and in Montreal, 26 September 1887. =
Beau
Austin was played at the Haymarket Theatre, London, 3 Nov. 1890. Admiral Gu=
inea
was played at the Avenue Theatre, on the afternoon of 29 Nov. 1897, and, li=
ke
the others, was not successful. The Athenaeum for 4 Dec. 1897 contains an
interesting criticism of this drama.... Semiramis was the original plan of a
"tragedy," which Stevenson afterwards rewrote as a novel, Prince
Otto, and published in 1885.]
[Note 7: It was so Keats learned. This must be
swallowed with a grain of salt. The best criticism of the poetry of Keats is
contained in his own Letters, which have been edited by Colvin and by Forma=
n.]
[Note 8: Montaigne ... Cicero. Montaigne, as a
child, spoke Latin before he could French: see his Essays. Montaigne is alw=
ays original,
frank, sincere: Cicero (in his orations) is always a Poseur.]
[Note 9: Burns ... Shakespeare. Some reflection
on, and investigation of these statements by Stevenson, will be highly bene=
ficial
to the student.]
[Note 10: The literary scales. It is very
interesting to note that Thomas Carlyle had completely mastered the techniq=
ue
of ordinary prose composition, before he deliberately began to write in his=
own
picturesque style, which has been called "Carlylese"; note the en=
ormous
difference in style between his Life of Schiller (1825) and his Sartor Resa=
rtus
(1833-4). Carlyle would be a shining illustration of the point Stevenson is
trying to make.]
No notes have been added to the second and thi=
rd
parts of this essay, as these portions are unimportant, and may be omitted =
by
the student; they are really introductory to something quite different, and=
are
printed in our edition only to make this essay complete.
=
The
Editor[2] has somewhat insidiously laid a trap for his correspondents, the
question put appearing at first so innocent, truly cutting so deep. It is n=
ot,
indeed, until after some reconnaissance and review that the writer awakes to
find himself engaged upon something in the nature of autobiography, or, per=
haps
worse, upon a chapter in the life of that little, beautiful brother whom we
once all had, and whom we have all lost and mourned, the man we ought to ha=
ve been,
the man we hoped to be. But when word has been passed (even to an editor), =
it
should, if possible, be kept; and if sometimes I am wise and say too little,
and sometimes weak and say too much, the blame must lie at the door of the
person who entrapped me.
The most influential books,[3] and the truest =
in
their influence, are works of fiction. They do not pin the reader to a dogm=
a,
which he must afterwards discover to be inexact; they do not teach him a
lesson, which he must afterwards unlearn. They repeat, they rearrange, they=
clarify
the lessons of life; they disengage us from ourselves, they constrain us to=
the
acquaintance of others; and they show us the web of experience, not as we c=
an
see it for ourselves, but with a singular change--that monstrous, consuming=
ego
of ours being, for the nonce, struck out. To be so, they must be reasonably
true to the human comedy; and any work that is so serves the turn of
instruction. But the course of our education is answered best by those poems
and romances where we breathe a magnanimous atmosphere of thought and meet =
generous
and pious characters. Shakespeare has served me best. Few living friends ha=
ve
had upon me an influence so strong for good as Hamlet or Rosalind. The last
character, already well beloved in the reading, I had the good fortune to s=
ee,
I must think, in an impressionable hour, played by Mrs. Scott Siddons.[4]
Nothing has ever more moved, more delighted, more refreshed me; nor has the
influence quite passed away. Kent's brief speech[5] over the dying Lear had=
a great
effect upon my mind, and was the burthen of my reflections for long, so
profoundly, so touchingly generous did it appear in sense, so overpowering =
in
expression. Perhaps my dearest and best friend outside of Shakespeare is
D'Artagnan--the elderly D'Artagnan of the Vicomte de Bragelonne.[6] I know =
not
a more human soul, nor, in his way, a finer; I shall be very sorry for the =
man
who is so much of a pedant in morals that he cannot learn from the Captain =
of
Musketeers. Lastly, I must name the Pilgrim's Progress,[7] a book that brea=
thes
of every beautiful and valuable emotion.
But of works of art little can be said; their
influence is profound and silent, like the influence of nature; they mould =
by
contact; we drink them up like water, and are bettered, yet know not how. I=
t is
in books more specifically didactic that we can follow out the effect, and
distinguish and weigh and compare. A book which has been very influential u=
pon
me fell early into my hands, and so may stand first, though I think its
influence was only sensible later on, and perhaps still keeps growing, for =
it
is a book not easily outlived: the Essais of Montaigne.[8] That temperate a=
nd
genial picture of life is a great gift to place in the hands of persons of
to-day; they will find in these smiling pages a magazine of heroism and wis=
dom,
all of an antique strain; they will have their "linen decencies"[=
9] and
excited orthodoxies fluttered, and will (if they have any gift of reading)
perceive that these have not been fluttered without some excuse and ground =
of
reason; and (again if they have any gift of reading) they will end by seeing
that this old gentleman was in a dozen ways a finer fellow, and held in a d=
ozen
ways a nobler view of life, than they or their contemporaries.
The next book, in order of time, to influence =
me,
was the New Testament, and in particular the Gospel according to St. Matthe=
w. I
believe it would startle and move any one if they could make a certain effo=
rt
of imagination and read it freshly like a book, not droningly and dully lik=
e a
portion of the Bible. Any one would then be able to see in it those truths
which we are all courteously supposed to know and all modestly refrain from
applying. But upon this subject it is perhaps better to be silent.
I come next to Whitman's Leaves of Grass,[10] a
book of singular service, a book which tumbled the world upside down for me,
blew into space a thousand cobwebs of genteel and ethical illusion, and, ha=
ving
thus shaken my tabernacle of lies, set me back again upon a strong foundati=
on
of all the original and manly virtues. But it is, once more, only a book for
those who have the gift of reading.[11] I will be very frank--I believe it =
is
so with all good books except, perhaps, fiction. The average man lives, and
must live, so wholly in convention, that gun-powder charges of the truth are
more apt to discompose than to invigorate his creed. Either he cries out up=
on blasphemy
and indecency, and crouches the closer round that little idol of part-truths
and part-conveniences which is the contemporary deity, or he is convinced by
what is new, forgets what is old, and becomes truly blasphemous and indecent
himself. New truth is only useful to supplement the old; rough truth is only
wanted to expand, not to destroy, our civil and often elegant conventions. =
He
who cannot judge had better stick to fiction and the daily papers. There he
will get little harm, and, in the first at least, some good.
Close upon the back of my discovery of Whitman=
, I
came under the influence of Herbert Spencer.[12] No more persuasive rabbi
exists. How much of his vast structure will bear the touch of time, how muc=
h is
clay and how much brass, it were too curious to inquire. But his words, if =
dry,
are always manly and honest; there dwells in his pages a spirit of highly
abstract joy, plucked naked like an algebraic symbol but still joyful; and =
the
reader will find there a caput mortuum[13] of piety, with little indeed of =
its
loveliness, but with most of its essentials; and these two qualities make h=
im a
wholesome, as his intellectual vigour makes him a bracing, writer. I should=
be much
of a hound if I lost my gratitude to Herbert Spencer.
Goethe's Life, by Lewes,[14] had a great
importance for me when it first fell into my hands--a strange instance of t=
he
partiality of man's good and man's evil. I know no one whom I less admire t=
han Goethe;
he seems a very epitome of the sins of genius, breaking open the doors of
private life, and wantonly wounding friends, in that crowning offence of
Werther, and in his own character a mere pen-and-ink Napoleon, conscious of=
the
rights and duties of superior talents as a Spanish inquisitor was conscious=
of
the rights and duties of his office. And yet in his fine devotion to his ar=
t,
in his honest and serviceable friendship for Schiller, what lessons are
contained! Biography, usually so false to its office, does here for once
perform for us some of the work of fiction, reminding us, that is, of the t=
ruly
mingled tissue of man's nature, and how huge faults and shining virtues coh=
abit
and persevere in the same character. History serves us well to this effect,=
but
in the originals, not in the pages of the popular epitomiser, who is bound,=
by
the very nature of his task, to make us feel the difference of epochs inste=
ad
of the essential identity of man, and even in the originals only to those w=
ho
can recognise their own human virtues and defects in strange forms, often i=
nverted
and under strange names, often interchanged. Martial[15] is a poet of no go=
od
repute, and it gives a man new thoughts to read his works dispassionately, =
and
find in this unseemly jester's serious passages the image of a kind, wise, =
and
self-respecting gentleman. It is customary, I suppose, in reading Martial, =
to
leave out these pleasant verses; I never heard of them, at least, until I f=
ound
them for myself; and this partiality is one among a thousand things that he=
lp
to build up our distorted and hysterical conception of the great Roman Empi=
re.
This brings us by a natural transition to a ve=
ry
noble book--the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.[16] The dispassionate gravi=
ty,
the noble forgetfulness of self, the tenderness of others, that are there e=
xpressed
and were practised on so great a scale in the life of its writer, make this
book a book quite by itself. No one can read it and not be moved. Yet it
scarcely or rarely appeals to the feelings--those very mobile, those not ve=
ry
trusty parts of man. Its address lies further back: its lesson comes more
deeply home; when you have read, you carry away with you a memory of the man
himself; it is as though you had touched a loyal hand, looked into brave ey=
es,
and made a noble friend; there is another bond on you thenceforward, binding
you to life and to the love of virtue.
Wordsworth[17] should perhaps come next. Every=
one
has been influenced by Wordsworth, and it is hard to tell precisely how. A
certain innocence, a rugged austerity of joy, a night of the stars, "t=
he silence
that is in the lonely hills," something of the cold thrill of dawn, cl=
ing
to his work and give it a particular address to what is best in us. I do not
know that you learn a lesson; you need not--Mill did not--agree with any on=
e of
his beliefs; and yet the spell is cast. Such are the best teachers: a dogma
learned is only a new error--the old one was perhaps as good; but a spirit
communicated is a perpetual possession. These best teachers climb beyond
teaching to the plane of art; it is themselves, and what is best in themsel=
ves,
that they communicate.
I should never forgive myself if I forgot The
Egoist. It is art, if you like, but it belongs purely to didactic art, and =
from
all the novels I have read (and I have read thousands) stands in a place by=
itself.
Here is a Nathan for the modern David;[18] here is a book to send the blood
into men's faces. Satire, the angry picture of human faults, is not great a=
rt;
we can all be angry with our neighbour; what we want is to be shown, not his
defects, of which we are too conscious, but his merits, to which we are too
blind. And The Egoist[19] is a satire; so much must be allowed; but it is a
satire of a singular quality, which tells you nothing of that obvious mote,=
which
is engaged from first to last with that invisible beam. It is yourself that=
is
hunted down; these are your own faults that are dragged into the day and
numbered, with lingering relish, with cruel cunning and precision. A young
friend of Mr. Meredith's (as I have the story) came to him in an agony.
"This is too bad of you," he cried. "Willoughby is me!"
"No, my dear fellow," said the author; "he is all of us.&quo=
t; I
have read The Egoist five or six times myself, and I mean to read it again;=
for
I am like the young friend of the anecdote--I think Willoughby an unmanly b=
ut a
very serviceable exposure of myself.
I suppose, when I am done, I shall find that I
have forgotten much that was most influential, as I see already I have
forgotten Thoreau,[20] and Hazlitt, whose paper "On the Spirit of
Obligations" was a turning-point in my life, and Penn, whose little bo=
ok
of aphorisms had a brief but strong effect on me, and Mitford's Tales[21] of
Old Japan, wherein I learned for the first time the proper attitude of any
rational man to his country's laws--a secret found, and kept, in the Asiatic
islands. That I should commemorate all is more than I can hope or the Editor
could ask. It will be more to the point, after having said so much upon
improving books, to say a word or two about the improvable reader. The gift=
of
reading, as I have called it, is not very common, nor very generally
understood. It consists, first of all, in a vast intellectual endowment--a =
free
grace, I find I must call it--by which a man rises to understand that he is=
not
punctually right, nor those from whom he differs absolutely wrong. He may h=
old
dogmas; he may hold them passionately; and he may know that others hold them
but coldly, or hold them differently, or hold them not at all. Well, if he =
has
the gift of reading, these others will be full of meat for him. They will s=
ee
the other side of propositions and the other side of virtues. He need not
change his dogma for that, but he may change his reading of that dogma, and=
he must
supplement and correct his deductions from it. A human truth, which is alwa=
ys
very much a lie, hides as much of life as it displays. It is men who hold
another truth, or, as it seems to us, perhaps, a dangerous lie, who can ext=
end
our restricted field of knowledge, and rouse our drowsy consciences. Someth=
ing
that seems quite new, or that seems insolently false or very dangerous, is =
the
test of a reader. If he tries to see what it means, what truth excuses it, =
he
has the gift, and let him read. If he is merely hurt, or offended, or excla=
ims
upon his author's folly, he had better take to the daily papers; he will ne=
ver
be a reader.
And here, with the aptest illustrative force,
after I have laid down my part-truth, I must step in with its opposite. For,
after all, we are vessels of a very limited content. Not all men can read a=
ll
books; it is only in a chosen few that any man will find his appointed food=
; and
the fittest lessons are the most palatable, and make themselves welcome to =
the
mind. A writer learns this early, and it is his chief support; he goes on
unafraid, laying down the law; and he is sure at heart that most of what he
says is demonstrably false, and much of a mingled strain, and some hurtful,=
and
very little good for service; but he is sure besides that when his words fa=
ll
into the hands of any genuine reader, they will be weighed and winnowed, and
only that which suits will be assimilated; and when they fall into the hand=
s of
one who cannot intelligently read, they come there quite silent and inartic=
ulate,
falling upon deaf ears, and his secret is kept as if he had not written.
=
NOTES
This article first appeared in the British Wee=
kly
for 13 May 1887, forming Stevenson's contribution to a symposium on this
subject by some of the celebrated writers of the day, including Gladstone, =
Ruskin,
Hamerton; and others as widely different as Archdeacon Farrar and Rider
Haggard. In the same year (1887) the papers were all collected and publishe=
d by
the Weekly in a volume, with the title Books Which Have Influenced Me. This
essay was later included in the complete editions of Stevenson's Works
(Edinburgh ed., Vol. XI, Thistle ed., Vol. XXII).
[Note 1: First published in the British Weekly,
May 13, 1887.]
[Note 2: Of the British Weekly.]
[Note 3: The most influential books ... are wo=
rks
of fiction. This statement is undoubtedly true, if we use the word
"fiction" in the sense understood here by Stevenson. It is curiou=
s,
however, to note the rise in dignity of "works of fiction," and of
"novels"; people used to read them with apologies, and did not li=
ke
to be caught at it. The cheerful audacity of Stevenson's declaration would =
have
seemed like blasphemy fifty years earlier.]
[Note 4: Mrs. Scott Siddons. Not for a moment =
to
be confounded with the great actress Sarah Siddons, who died in 1831. Mrs. =
Scott
Siddons, in spite of Stevenson's enthusiasm, was not an actress of remarkab=
le power.]
[Note 5: Kent's brief speech. Toward the end of
King Lear.]
"Vex not his ghost: O, let him pass! he hates him That would upon the rack of t=
his
tough world Stretch him=
out
longer."]
[Note 6: D'Artagnan ... Vicomte de Bragelonne.=
See
Stevenson's essay, A Gossip on a Novel of Dumas's (1887), in Memories and P=
ortraits.
See also Note 3 of Chapter II above and Note 43 of Chapter IV above. Vicomt=
e de
Bragelonne is the title of the sequel to Twenty Years After, which is the
sequel to the Musketeers. Dumas wrote 257 volumes of romance, plays, travels
etc.]
[Note 7: Pilgrim's Progress. See Note 13 of
Chapter V above.]
[Note 8: Essais of Montaigne. See Note 6 of
Chapter VI above. The best translation in English of the Essais is that by =
the Elizabethan,
John Florio (1550-1625), a contemporary of Montaigne. His translation appea=
red
in 1603, and may now be obtained complete in the handy "Temple"
classics. There is a copy of Florio's Montaigne with Ben Jonson's autograph,
and also one that has what many believe to be a genuine autograph of
Shakspere.]
[Note 9: "Linen decencies." "The
ghost of a linen decency yet haunts us."--Milton, Areopagitica.]
[Note 10: Whitman's Leaves of Grass. See
Stevenson's admirable essay on Walt Whitman (1878), also Note 12 of Chapter=
III
above.]
[Note 11: Have the gift of reading. "Books
are written to be read by those who can understand them. Their possible eff=
ect
on those who cannot, is a matter of medical rather than of literary
interest." --Prof. W. Raleigh, The English Novel, remarks on Tom Jones=
, Chap.
VI.]
[Note 12: Herbert. See Note 18 of Chapter IV
above.]
[Note 13: Caput mortuum. Dry kernel. Literary,
"dead head."]
[Note 14: Goethe's Life, by Lewes. The standard
Life of Goethe (in English) is still that by George Henry Lewes (1817-1878),
the husband of George Eliot. His Life of Goethe appeared in 1855; he later =
made
a simpler, abridged edition, called The Story of Goethe's Life. Goethe, the
greatest literary genius since Shakspere, and now generally ranked among the
four supreme writers of the world, Homer, Dante, Shakspere, Goethe, was bor=
n in
1749, and died in 1832. Stevenson, like most British critics, is rather sev=
ere
on Goethe's character. The student should read Eckermann's Conversations wi=
th Goethe,
a book full of wisdom and perennial delight. For Werther, see Note 18 of
Chapter VI above. The friendship between Goethe and Schiller (1759-1805),
"his honest and serviceable friendship," as Stevenson puts it, is
among the most beautiful things to contemplate in literary history. Before =
the
theatre in Weimar, Germany, where the two men lived, stands a remarkable st=
atue
of the pair: and their coffins lie side by side in a crypt in the same town=
.]
[Note 15: Martial. Poet, wit and epigrammatist,
born in Spain 43 A. D., died 104. He lived in Rome from 66 to 100, enjoying=
a
high reputation as a writer.]
[Note 16: Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Marc=
us
Aurelius Antoninus, often called "the noblest of Pagans" was born=
121
A. D., and died 180. His Meditations have been translated into the chief mo=
dern
languages, and though their author was hostile to Christianity, the ethics =
of
the book are much the same as those of the New Testament.]
[Note 17: Wordsworth ... Mill. William Wordswo=
rth
(1770-1850), poet-laureate (1843-1850), is by many regarded as the third po=
et
in English literature, after Shakspere and Milton, whose places are unassai=
lable.
Other candidates for the third place are Chaucer and Spenser. "The sil=
ence
that is in the lonely hills" is loosely quoted from Wordsworth's Song =
at
the Feast of Brougham Castle, Upon the Restoration of Lord Clifford, publis=
hed
in 1807. The passage reads:
"The silence that is in the starry sky, The sleep that is among the l=
onely
hills."
... In the Autobiography (1873) of John Stuart
Mill (1806-1873), there is a remarkable passage where he testifies to the
influence exerted upon him by Wordsworth.]
[Note 18: A Nathan for the modern David. The
famous accusation of the prophet to the king, "Thou art the man."=
See
II Sam. 12.]
[Note 19: The Egoist. See Note 47 of Chapter IV
above. Stevenson never tired of singing the praises of this novel.]
[Note 20: Thoreau ... Hazlitt ... Penn ...
Mitford's Tales... Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), the American naturalist=
and
writer, whose works impressed Stevenson deeply. See the latter's excellent
essay on Thoreau (1880), in Familiar Studies of Men and Books.... Hazlitt, =
See
Note 19 of Chapter II above. His paper, On the Spirit of Obligations, appea=
red
in The Plain Speaker, 2 Vols., 1826. Penn, whose little book of aphorisms. =
This
refers to William Penn's famous book, Some Fruits of Solitude: in Reflectio=
ns
and Maxims relating to the Conduct of Human Life (1693). Edmund Gosse says,=
in
his Introduction to a charming little edition of this book in 1900, "S=
tevenson
had intended to make this book and its author the subject of one of his
critical essays. In February 1880 he was preparing to begin it... He never
found the opportunity... But it has left an indelible stamp on the tenor of=
his
moral writings. The philosophy of B. L. S. ... is tinctured through and thr=
ough
with the honest, shrewd, and genial maxims of Penn." Stevenson himself=
, in
his Letters (Vol. I, pp. 232, 233), spoke of this little book in the highest
terms of praise.]
[Note 21: Mitford's Tales. Mary Russell Mitford
(1787-1855), a novelist and dramatist who enjoyed an immense vogue. "H=
er
inimitable series of country sketches, drawn from her own experiences at Th=
ree Mile
Cross, entitled 'Our Village,' began to appear in 1819 in the 'Lady's
Magazine,' a little-known periodical, whose sale was thereby increased from=
250
to 2,000. ... The sketches had an enormous success, and were collected in f=
ive
volumes, published respectively in 1824, 1826, 1828, 1830, and 1832. ... The
book may be said to have laid the foundation of a branch of literature hith=
erto
untried. The sketches resemble Dutch paintings in their fidelity of
detail."--Dic. Nat. Biog.]
=
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We look for some reward of our endeavors and a=
re
disappointed; not success, not happiness, not even peace of conscience, cro=
wns
our ineffectual efforts to do well. Our frailties are invincible, are virtu=
es
barren; the battle goes sore against us to the going down of the sun. The
canting moralist tells us of right and wrong; and we look abroad, even on t=
he
face of our small earth, and find them change with every climate,[1] and no
country where some action is not honoured for a virtue and none where it is=
not
branded for a vice; and we look in our experience, and find no vital congru=
ity
in the wisest rules, but at the best a municipal fitness. It is not strange=
if
we are tempted to despair of good. We ask too much. Our religions and
moralities have been trimmed to flatter us, till they are all emasculate an=
d sentimentalised,
and only please and weaken. Truth is of a rougher strain. In the harsh face=
of
life, faith can read a bracing gospel. The human race is a thing more ancie=
nt
than the ten commandments; and the bones and revolutions of the Kosmos, in
whose joints we are but moss and fungus, more ancient still.
Of the Kosmos in the last resort, science repo=
rts
many doubtful things and all of them appalling. There seems no substance to
this solid globe on which we stamp: nothing but symbols and ratios. Symbols=
and
ratios carry us and bring us forth and beat us down; gravity that swings the
incommensurable suns and worlds through space, is but a figment varying
inversely as the squares of distances; and the suns and worlds themselves,
imponderable figures of abstraction, NH3 and H2O.[2] Consideration dares not
dwell upon this view; that way madness lies;[3] science carries us into zon=
es
of speculation, where there is no habitable city for the mind of man.
But take the Kosmos with a grosser faith, as o=
ur
senses give it to us. We behold space sown with rotatory islands; suns and
worlds and the shards and wrecks of systems: some, like the sun, still blaz=
ing;
some rotting, like the earth; others, like the moon, stable in desolation. =
All
of these we take to be made of something we call matter: a thing which no
analysis can help us to conceive; to whose incredible properties no familia=
rity
can reconcile our minds. This stuff, when not purified by the lustration of
fire, rots uncleanly into something we call life; seized through all its at=
oms
with a pediculous malady; swelling in tumours that become independent,
sometimes even (by an abhorrent prodigy) locomotory;[4] one splitting into
millions, millions cohering into one, as the malady proceeds through varyin=
g stages.
This vital putrescence of the dust, used as we are to it, yet strikes us wi=
th
occasional disgust, and the profusion of worms in a piece of ancient turf, =
or
the air of a marsh darkened with insects, will sometimes check our breathin=
g so
that we aspire for cleaner places. But none is clean: the moving sand is
infected with lice; the pure spring, where it bursts out of the mountain, i=
s a
mere issue of worms; even in the hard rock the crystal is forming.
In two main shapes this eruption covers the
countenance of the earth: the animal and the vegetable: one in some degree =
the
inversion of the other: the second rooted to the spot; the first coming
detached out of its natal mud, and scurrying abroad with the myriad feet of
insects or towering into the heavens on the wings of birds: a thing so inco=
nceivable
that, if it be well considered, the heart stops. To what passes with the
anchored vermin, we have little clue: doubtless they have their joys and
sorrows, their delights and killing agonies: it appears not how. But of the
locomotory, to which we ourselves belong, we can tell more. These share wit=
h us
a thousand miracles: the miracles of sight, of hearing, of the projection of
sound, things that bridge space; the miracles of memory and reason, by which
the present is conceived, and when it is gone, its image kept living in the
brains of man and brute; the miracle of reproduction, with its imperious de=
sires
and staggering consequences. And to put the last touch upon this mountain m=
ass
of the revolting and the inconceivable, all these prey upon each other, liv=
es
tearing other lives in pieces, cramming them inside themselves, and by that
summary process, growing fat: the vegetarian, the whale, perhaps the tree, =
not
less than the lion of the desert; for the vegetarian is only the eater of t=
he
dumb.
Meanwhile our rotary island loaded with predat= ory life, and more drenched with blood, both animal and vegetable, than ever mutinied ship, scuds through space with unimaginable speed, and turns alter= nate cheeks to the reverberation of a blazing world, ninety million miles away.<= o:p>
What a monstrous spectre is this man, the dise=
ase
of the agglutinated dust, lifting alternate feet or lying drugged with slum=
ber;
killing, feeding, growing, bringing forth small copies of himself; grown up=
on with
hair like grass, fitted with eyes that move and glitter in his face; a thin=
g to
set children screaming;--and yet looked at nearlier, known as his fellows k=
now
him, how surprising are his attributes! Poor soul, here for so little, cast
among so many hardships, filled with desires so incommensurate and so
inconsistent, savagely surrounded, savagely descended, irremediably condemn=
ed
to prey upon his fellow lives: who should have blamed him had he been of a
piece with his destiny and a being merely barbarous? And we look and behold=
him
instead filled with imperfect virtues: infinitely childish, often admirably
valiant, often touchingly kind; sitting down, amidst his momentary life, to
debate of right and wrong and the attributes of the deity; rising up to do
battle for an egg or die for an idea; singling out his friends and his mate
with cordial affection; bringing forth in pain, rearing with long-suffering
solicitude, his young. To touch the heart of his mystery,[5] we find in him=
one
thought, strange to the point of lunacy: the thought of duty;[6] the though=
t of
something owing to himself, to his neighbour, to his God: an ideal of decen=
cy, to
which he would rise if it were possible; a limit of shame, below which, if =
it
be possible, he will not stoop. The design in most men is one of conformity;
here and there, in picked natures, it transcends itself and soars on the ot=
her
side, arming martyrs with independence; but in all, in their degrees, it is=
a
bosom thought:--Not in man alone, for we trace it in dogs and cats whom we =
know
fairly well, and doubtless some similar point of honour sways the elephant,=
the
oyster, and the louse, of whom we know so little:--But in man, at least, it=
sways
with so complete an empire that merely selfish things come second, even with
the selfish: that appetites are starved, fears are conquered, pains support=
ed;
that almost the dullest shrinks from the reproof of a glance, although it w=
ere
a child's; and all but the most cowardly stand amid the risks of war; and t=
he
more noble, having strongly conceived an act as due to their ideal, affront=
and
embrace death. Strange enough if, with their singular origin and perverted =
practice,
they think they are to be rewarded in some future life: stranger still, if =
they
are persuaded of the contrary, and think this blow, which they solicit, will
strike them senseless for eternity. I shall be reminded what a tragedy of
misconception and misconduct man at large presents: of organised injustice,
cowardly violence and treacherous crime; and of the damning imperfections of
the best. They cannot be too darkly drawn. Man is indeed marked for failure=
in
his efforts to do right. But where the best consistently miscarry, how tenf=
old
more remarkable that all should continue to strive; and surely we should fi=
nd
it both touching and inspiriting, that in a field from which success is
banished, our race should not cease to labour.
If the first view of this creature, stalking in
his rotatory isle, be a thing to shake the courage of the stoutest, on this
nearer sight, he startles us with an admiring wonder. It matters not where =
we
look, under what climate we observe him, in what stage of society, in what =
depth
of ignorance, burthened with what erroneous morality; by camp-fires in
Assiniboia,[7] the snow powdering his shoulders, the wind plucking his blan=
ket,
as he sits, passing the ceremonial calumet and uttering his grave opinions =
like
a Roman senator; in ships at sea, a man inured to hardship and vile pleasur=
es,
his brightest hope a fiddle in a tavern and a bedizened trull who sells her=
self
to rob him, and he for all that simple, innocent, cheerful, kindly like a
child, constant to toil, brave to drown, for others; in the slums of cities=
, moving
among indifferent millions to mechanical employments, without hope of chang=
e in
the future, with scarce a pleasure in the present, and yet true to his virt=
ues,
honest up to his lights, kind to his neighbours, tempted perhaps in vain by=
the
bright gin-palace, perhaps long-suffering with the drunken wife that ruins =
him;
in India (a woman this time) kneeling with broken cries and streaming tears=
, as
she drowns her child in the sacred river;[8] in the brothel, the discard of
society, living mainly on strong drink, fed with affronts, a fool, a thief,=
the
comrade of thieves, and even here keeping the point of honour and the touch=
of
pity,[9] often repaying the world's scorn with service, often standing firm
upon a scruple, and at a certain cost, rejecting riches:--everywhere some
virtue cherished or affected, everywhere some decency of thought and carria=
ge,
everywhere the ensign of man's ineffectual goodness:--ah! if I could show y=
ou
this! if I could show you these men and women, all the world over, in every
stage of history, under every abuse of error, under every circumstance of f=
ailure,
without hope, without help, without thanks, still obscurely fighting the lo=
st
fight of virtue, still clinging, in the brothel or on the scaffold, to some=
rag
of honour, the poor jewel of their souls! They may seek to escape, and yet =
they
cannot; it is not alone their privilege and glory, but their doom; they are
condemned to some nobility; all their lives long, the desire of good is at
their heels, the implacable hunter.
Of all earth's meteors, here at least is the m=
ost
strange and consoling: that this ennobled lemur, this hair-crowned bubble of
the dust, this inheritor of a few years and sorrows, should yet deny himself
his rare delights, and add to his frequent pains, and live for an ideal,
however misconceived. Nor can we stop with man. A new doctrine,[10] received
with screams a little while ago by canting moralists, and still not properly
worked into the body of our thoughts, lights us a step farther into the hea=
rt
of this rough but noble universe. For nowadays the pride of man denies in v=
ain
his kinship with the original dust. He stands no longer like a thing apart.
Close at his heels we see the dog, prince of another genius: and in him too=
, we
see dumbly testified the same cultus[11] of an unattainable ideal, the same
constancy in failure. Does it stop with the dog? We look at our feet where =
the
ground is blackened with the swarming ant: a creature so small, so far from=
us
in the hierarchy of brutes, that we can scarce trace and scarce comprehend =
his
doings; and here also, in his ordered polities and rigorous justice, we see=
confessed
the law of duty and the fact of individual sin. Does it stop, then, with the
ant? Rather this desire of well-doing and this doom of frailty run through =
all
the grades of life: rather is this earth, from the frosty top of Everest[12=
] to
the next margin of the internal fire, one stage of ineffectual virtues and =
one
temple of pious tears and perseverance. The whole creation groaneth[13] and=
travaileth
together. It is the common and the god-like law of life. The browsers, the
biters, the barkers, the hairy coats of field and forest, the squirrel in t=
he
oak, the thousand-footed creeper in the dust, as they share with us the gif=
t of
life, share with us the love of an ideal: strive like us--like us are tempt=
ed
to grow weary of the struggle--to do well; like us receive at times unmerit=
ed
refreshment, visitings of support, returns of courage; and are condemned li=
ke
us to be crucified between that double law[14] of the members and the will.=
Are
they like us, I wonder in the timid hope of some reward, some sugar with the
drug? do they, too, stand aghast at unrewarded virtues, at the sufferings of
those whom, in our partiality, we take to be just, and the prosperity of su=
ch
as, in our blindness, we call wicked? It may be, and yet God knows what they
should look for. Even while they look, even while they repent, the foot of =
man
treads them by thousands in the dust, the yelping hounds burst upon their
trail, the bullet speeds, the knives are heating in the den of the vivisect=
ionist;[15]
or the dew falls, and the generation of a day is blotted out. For these are
creatures, compared with whom our weakness is strength, our ignorance wisdo=
m,
our brief span eternity.
And as we dwell, we living things, in our isle=
of
terror[16] and under the imminent hand of death, God forbid it should be man
the erected, the reasoner, the wise in his own eyes--God forbid it should be
man that wearies in well-doing,[17] that despairs of unrewarded effort, or =
utters
the language of complaint. Let it be enough for faith, that the whole creat=
ion
groans in mortal frailty, strives with unconquerable constancy: Surely not =
all
in vain.[18]
During the year 1888, part of which was spent =
by
Stevenson at Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks he published one article every
month in Scribner's Magazine. Pulvis et Umbra appeared in the April number,=
and
was later included in the volume Across the Plains (1892). He wrote this
particular essay with intense feeling. Writing to Sidney Colvin in December
1887, he said, "I get along with my papers for Scribner not fast, nor =
so
far specially well; only this last, the fourth one.... I do believe is pull=
ed
off after a fashion. It is a mere sermon: ... but it is true, and I find it
touching and beneficial, to me at least; and I think there is some fine wri=
ting
in it, some very apt and pregnant phrases. Pulvis et Umbra, I call it; I mi=
ght
have called it a Darwinian Sermon, if I had wanted. Its sentiments, although
parsonic, will not offend even you, I believe." (Letters, II, 100.)
Writing to Miss Adelaide Boodle in April 1888, he said, "I wrote a pap=
er
the other day--Pulvis et Umbra;--I wrote it with great feeling and convicti=
on:
to me it seemed bracing and healthful, it is in such a world (so seen by me=
),
that I am very glad to fight out my battle, and see some fine sunsets, and =
hear
some excellent jests between whiles round the camp fire. But I find that to=
some
people this vision of mine is a nightmare, and extinguishes all ground of f=
aith
in God or pleasure in man. Truth I think not so much of; for I do not know =
it.
And I could wish in my heart that I had not published this paper, if it
troubles folk too much: all have not the same digestion nor the same sight =
of
things.... Well, I cannot take back what I have said; but yet I may add thi=
s.
If my view be everything but the nonsense that it may be--to me it seems se=
lf-evident
and blinding truth--surely of all things it makes this world holier. There =
is
nothing in it but the moral side--but the great battle and the breathing ti=
mes
with their refreshments. I see no more and no less. And if you look again, =
it
is not ugly, and it is filled with promise." (Letters, II, 123.) The w=
ords
Pulvis et Umbra mean literally "dust and shadow": the phrase,
however, is quoted from Horace "pulvis et umbra sumus"--we are du=
st
and ashes. It forms the text of one of Stevenson's familiar discourses on
Death, like Aes Triplex.
[Note 1: Find them change with every climate, =
etc.
For some striking illustrations of this, see Sudermann's drama, Die Ehre
(Honour).]
[Note 2: NH3 and H2O. The first is the chemical
formula for ammonia: the second, for water.]
[Note 3: That way madness lies. King Lear, III=
, 4,
21.]
[Note 4: A pediculous malady ... locomotory.
Stevenson was fond of strange words. "Pediculous" means covered w=
ith
lice, lousy.]
[Note 5: The heart of his mystery. Hamlet, Act
III, Sc. 2, "you would pluck out the heart of my mystery." Mystery
here means "secret," as in I. Cor. XIII, "Behold, I tell you=
a
mystery."]
[Note 6: The thought of duty. Kant said, "=
;Two
things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the
oftener and the more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above =
and
the moral law within." (Conclusion to the Practical Reason--Kritik der=
praktischen
Vernunft, 1788.)]
[Note 7: Assiniboia ... Calumet. Assinibioia i=
s a
district of Canada, just west of Manitoba. Calumet is the pipe of peace, us=
ed
by North American Indians when solemnizing treaties etc. Its stem is over t=
wo
feet long, heavily decorated with feathers etc.]
[Note 8: Drowns her child in the sacred river.=
The
sacred river of India is the Ganges; before British control, children were
often sacrificed there by drowning to appease the angry divinity.]
[Note 9: The touch of pity. "No beast so
fierce but knows some touch of pity." Richard III, Act I, Sc. 2, vs. 7=
1.
This ennobled lemur. A lemur is a nocturnal animal, something like a monkey=
.]
[Note 10: A new doctrine. Evolution. Darwin's
Origin of Species was published in 1859. Many ardent Christians believe in =
its
general principles to-day; but at first it was bitterly attacked by orthodo=
x and
conservative critics. A Princeton professor cried, "Darwinism is Athei=
sm!"]
[Note 11: Cultus. Stevenson liked this word. T=
he
swarming ant. "The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their
meat in the summer."--Proverbs, XXX. 25. For a wonderful description o=
f an
ant battle, see Thoreau's Walden.]
[Note 12: Everest. Mount Everest in the Himala=
yas,
is the highest mountain in the world, with an altitude of about 29,000 feet=
.]
[Note 13: The whole creation groaneth. Romans,
VIII, 22.]
[Note 14: That double law of the members. See =
Note
10 of Chapter VI above.]
[Note 15: Den of the vivisectionist. See Note =
2 of
Chapter VI above.]
[Note 16: In our isle of terror. Cf. Herriet, =
The
White Island.
"In this world, the isle of dreams, While we sit by sorrow's stre=
ams, Tears and terrors are our
themes."]
[Note 17: Man that wearies in well-doing.
Galatians, VI, 9.]
[Note 18: Surely not all in vain. At heart,
Stevenson belongs not to the pessimists nor the skeptics, but to the optimi=
sts
and the believers. A man may have no formal creed, and yet be a believer.