III. Critical
and Miscellaneous Prose.
§ 23. R. L. Stevenson.
Of all this group, the greatest was Robert Louis
Stevenson. Versatility was one of Stevenson’s most conspicuous qualities, for,
besides being the foremost essayist since Lamb and a master of fiction, whether
in the form of romance or in that of short story, he was also a dramatist and a
poet. The essay, however, was the form in which he first gave promise of his
future distinction, and the publication of Ordered South may be regarded
as his real entrance upon literature. Ordered South lifts the veil from
Stevenson’s life and gives insight into conditions which profoundly affected
all his work. It is the essay of an invalid, and an invalid Stevenson was
destined to remain till the end. But he was an invalid with the spirit of a
robust adventurer. A victim to tuberculosis, who, at times, could scarcely
breathe and who seemed to need all his energies in order merely to live, he was
a lover of the sea and a daring voyager, and, long after he had reached
manhood, still played, with tireless zest, a war-game of his own invention. In
his case, broken health did not quench, but rather stimulated, the heroic in
his nature. Hence, feeble as was his hold on life, in forty-four years he
accomplished far more than the vast majority of those who live the full span in
the enjoyment of vigorous health. The body was weak, but the spirit was
indomitable. It was the eagerness of his spirit and his keen sympathy with men
of action that saved Stevenson from the besetting sin of the artist in words,
the temptation to subordinate meaning to sound.
It was not until the publication of Treasure
Island as a separate volume in 1883 that Stevenson was
generally recognised as a great writer; but, prior to that, he had written and
published some short stories and many essays. The records of personal
experience which are embodied in An Inland Voyage and in Travels with
a Donkey in the Cevennes are essentially essays.
Fugitive papers were gathered into volumes, intimate and confidential, as in Virginibus Puerisque,
or critical, as in Familiar Studies of Men and Books. Both in matter and
in manner they were excellent, but they did not make their author famous. Other
volumes, akin in spirit and substance, were added in later
years—fragments of autobiography and travel, such as The Amateur
Emigrant, The Silverado Squatters and In the South Seas, and
collections of miscellaneous papers, such as Memories and Portraits and Across
the Plains. In all his work of this class Stevenson is easy, graceful and
friendly, except on occasion, when, as in A Christmas Sermon, the tone
is too lofty for these adjectives. But there, too, he is intimate, and there,
perhaps more clearly than anywhere else, he reveals the moral interest which
underlies most of his work. The body of short stories grew along with the
essays, and Stevenson was a master of story-craft no less than of essaycraft. He never surpassed some of his earlier tales: The
Pavilion on the Links and Thrawn Janet
both appeared before Treasure Island.
But, among English-speaking people, it is difficult to make a great reputation
out of short stories. The stories published under the title The New Arabian
Nights were supposed to be responsible for the unpopularity and failure of London, the
periodical in which they originally appeared. Stevenson might, therefore, have
added masterpieces such as Markheim and The
Beach of Falesa, and still have remained obscure.
But, after Treasure Island, he was obscure no longer, and the brilliant
success of that excellent story for boys won readers for the essays and the
short stories who, save for it, would have paid no heed to them. It made
Stevenson a prosperous man, and did much to determine the direction of his
subsequent efforts. It was followed by a series of romances—Kidnapped,
with its sequel Catriona, The Black Arrow,
The Master of Ballantrae and others, down to his
masterpiece Weir of Hermiston and the unfinished St. Ives. In
these romances, Stevenson is at his best, like Scott, when he is dealing with
his native land; but a comparison with the Waverley novels shows that, fine as his work
is, it falls decidedly short of the greatest. Only in Weir of Hermiston
does he for a moment rival Scott. Stevenson was growing till he died, and the
wonderful creation of the old judge, one of the best drawn characters in prose
fiction, deepens the regret that his days were numbered. Like Dickens, he had
the excellent habit of identifying himself with his characters, and this, no
doubt, explains his success. He acted their parts while he dictated, and
imitated their voices.
In other departments, Stevenson’s work was less excellent.
The dramas wherein he collaborated with Henley
were not very successful; but it must be added that their failure was largely
due to imperfect acquaintance with the conditions of the theatre. Both writers
were too highly gifted to produce work destitute of literary merit, and Beau
Austin, in particular, seems, from this point of view, to deserve more
success than it won.
This text comes from:
The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
Volume XIV. The Victorian Age, Part Two.
http://www.bartleby.com/224/0323.html