IV
Of all our writers there has been none to whom the epithet “charming” has been more frequently applied. Of late the epithet has become a kind of adjectival maid-of-all-work, and has done service where a less emphatic term would have done far better. But in Stevenson’s case the epithet is fully justified. Of all the literary Vagabonds he is the most captivating. Not the most interesting; the most arresting, one may admit. There is greater power in Hazlitt; De Quincey is more unique; the “prophetic scream” of Whitman is more penetrating. But not one of them was endowed with such wayward graces of disposition as Stevenson. Whatever you read of his you think invariably of the man. Indeed the personal note in his work is frequently the most interesting thing about it. I mean that what attracts and holds us is often not any originality, any profundity, nothing
specially inherent in the matter of his speech, but a bewitchingly delightful manner.
Examine his attractive essays, Virginibus Puerisque and Familiar Studies of Men and Books, and this quality will manifest itself. There is no pleasanter essay than the one on “Walking Tours”; it dresses up wholesome truths with so pleasant and picturesque a wit; it is so whimsical, yet withal so finely suggestive, that the reader who cannot yield to its fascination should consult a mental specialist.
For instance:—
“It must not be imagined that a walking tour, as some would have us fancy, is merely a better or worse way of seeing the country. There are many ways of seeing landscape quite as good; and none more vivid, in spite of canting dilettantes, than from a railway train. But landscape on a walking tour is quite accessory. He who is indeed of the brotherhood does not voyage in quest of the picturesque, but of certain jolly humours—of the hope and spirit with which the march begins at morning, and the peace and spiritual repletion of the evening’s rest. He cannot tell whether he puts his knapsack on or takes it off with more delight. The excitement of the departure puts him in key for that of the arrival. Whatever he does will be further rewarded in the sequel; and so pleasure leads on to pleasure in an endless chain.”
An admirable opening, full of the right relish. And the wit and relish are maintained down to the last sentence. But it cannot fail to awaken memories of the great departed in the reader of books. “Now to
be properly enjoyed,” counsels Stevenson, “a walking tour should be gone upon alone. . . . a walking tour should be gone upon alone because freedom is of the essence,” and so on in the same vein for twenty or thirty lines. One immediately recalls Hazlitt—“On Going a Journey”: “One of the pleasantest things is going on a journey; but I like to go by myself. . . . The soul of a journey is liberty, perfect liberty, to think, feel, do just as one pleases.”
A suspicion seizes the mind of the reader, and he will smile darkly to himself. But Stevenson is quite ready for him. “A strong flavour of Hazlitt, you think?” he seems to say, then with the frank ingenuousness of one who has confessed to “playing the sedulous ape,” he throws in a quotation from this very essay of Hazlitt’s and later on gives us more Hazlitt. It is impossible to resent it; it is so openly done, there is such a charming effrontery about the whole thing. And yet, though much that he says is obviously inspired by Hazlitt, he will impart that flavour of his own less mordant personality to the discourse.
If you turn to another, the “Truth of Intercourse,” it is hard to feel that it would have thrived had not Elia given up his “Popular Fallacies.” There is an unmistakable echo in the opening paragraph: “Among sayings that have a currency, in spite of being wholly false upon the face of them, for the sake of a half-truth upon another subject which is accidentally combined with the error, one of the grossest and broadest conveys the monstrous proposition that it is easy to tell the truth and hard to tell a lie. I wish heartily it were!” Similarly in
other essays the influence of Montaigne is strongly felt; and although Stevenson never fails to impart the flavour of his own individuality to his discourses—for he is certainly no mere copyist—one realizes the unwisdom of those enthusiastic admirers who have bracketed him with Lamb, Montaigne, and Hazlitt. These were men of the primary order; whereas Stevenson with all his grace and charm is assuredly of the secondary order. And no admiration for his attractive personality and captivating utterances should blind us to this fact.
As a critic of books his originality is perhaps more pronounced, but wise and large though many of his utterances are, here again it is the pleasant wayward Vagabond spirit that gives salt and flavour to them. There are many critics less brilliant, less attractive in their speech, in whose judgment I should place greater reliance. Sometimes, as in the essay on “Victor Hugo’s Romances,” his own temperament stands in the way; at other times, as in his “Thoreau” article, there is a vein of wilful capriciousness, even of impish malice, that distorts his judgment. Neither essays can be passed over; in each there is power and shrewd flashes of discernment, and both are extremely interesting. One cannot say they are satisfying. Stevenson does scant justice to the extraordinary passion, the Titanic strength, of Hugo; and in the case of Thoreau he dwells too harshly upon the less gracious aspects of the “poet-naturalist.”
It is only fair to say, however, that in the case of Thoreau he made generous amends in the preface to the Collected Essays. Both the reconsidered verdict and
the original essay are highly characteristic of the man. Other men have said equally harsh things of Thoreau. Stevenson alone had the fairness, the frank, childlike spirit to go back upon himself. These are the things that endear us to Stevenson, and make it impossible to be angry with any of his paradoxes and extravagant capers. Who but Stevenson would have written thus: “The most temperate of living critics once marked a passage of my own with a cross and the words, ‘This seems nonsense.’ It not only seemed, it was so. It was a private bravado of my own which I had so often repeated to keep up my spirits that I had grown at last wholly to believe it, and had ended by setting it down as a contribution to the theory of life.”
Touched by this confidence, one reads Stevenson—especially the letters—with a more discerning eye, a more compassionate understanding; and if at times one feels the presence of the Ariel too strong, and longs for a more human, less elfin personality, then the thought that we are dealing with deliberate “bravado” may well check our impatience.
Men who suffer much are wont to keep up a brave front by an appearance of indifference.