R. L. Stevenson

by Frank Swinnerton

I

If, in writing such a book as this, one could truly succeed in grasping the significance of a man’s work, or in appreciating the bent of his mind; and then, having grasped or appreciated, if one could convey the results with any precision, the book would have a significance beyond that of literary criticism. Having “drawed a man,” as Stevenson once did, one might indeed go on to “draw his soul,” as Stevenson only offered to do. And the consequence might be that one would throw some light upon that difficult problem—the psychology of genius. For we may seek deliberately now, or, if deliberateness seem too dryasdust, we may seek intuitively, to understand the way in which such a man as Stevenson grew up to be a successful writer, and the aspects in which the art of writing appeared to at least one of its exponents. I have tried here and there in this book to indicate something of the spirit in which Stevenson approached his art, and I have tried also to suggest what I regard as the particular strengths and shortcomings of Stevenson’s talent. But however one may interpret the work of a writer there must always be the danger that in pursuing an examination such as this one may be missing the very significance of which one is in search. At best, one can offer only tentatively the conclusions to be drawn from the results of such an examination.

Much has been written of Stevenson’s indebtedness in early days to other writers. He has committed himself to the suggestion that he coveted the power of writing before he was aware of anything that he particularly wished to write. For the purpose of learning to write, he claims to have imitated a dozen different authors, assiduously practising until he had obtained a mastery over words. My own impression, which I have given earlier, is that Stevenson’s sense of style was developed by the histrionic gifts of his nurse. That seems at least probable. I think that with a sense of style, a habit of spinning tales (which it appears that he possessed, in common with many people with no pretensions to literary skill), and a desire to write that was keen enough to be a hunger, Stevenson is a credible figure of youth. There must be many youths who get so far and go no further. The point about Stevenson is that he went on. But he went on as he began—as a writer, one who was determined to utilise words. Wherever he went he took the little notebook of which he has given an account; and he made the attempt to put everything he saw into words which expressed it exactly. The reader will find in early essays many curiously apt descriptions of natural phenomena—such, for example, as “the faint and choking odour of frost”—which show that when once Stevenson began to write away from the model he began also to observe consciously and to reproduce his sensations with what would nowadays be called “a photographic accuracy.” I have already quoted two such accuracies from Treasure Island, where they are very effective; but it would be hard to stop quoting Stevenson if one wished to record apt phrases, for apt phrases are as common with Stevenson as leaves on a tree.

What the reader next proceeds to question is the matter which the writing is used to convey. Until we come to such an essay as Ordered South, I believe there is very little life in this matter. In Roads there is a little weak vanity, as of fancy paralysed by self-consciousness, such as one may often see in the work of very young writers; but there seems no doubt that, by 1874, a year after the composition of Roads, Stevenson had reached a degree of proficiency which, given a suitable subject, enabled him to escape the flaccidity which besets a young writer. Poverty of matter, which forces him back upon incident or upon thin moralising, is, throughout, a defect of Stevenson’s writing. I suppose that the method by which he worked was too “near,” too self-conscious, to allow his mind ever to become rich and fallow. He was using up his experience too immediately and too continuously as literary material for any very great richness to mature. He is never, that is to say, a rich writer: whatever compression there is in his work is the compression that comes of the excised word and the concentrated phrase rather than the pregnancy of thought, whether vigorous or abstruse. It must be remembered that, wherever he went, his journey or his place of residence provided him almost at once with a practicable background for literary work of some sort. His travel-books, his stories—these all show immediately the stage of his life’s journey to which they belong.

That is one thing. Another is that his writing is very clear. It is a model in its freedom from ambiguities. If clarity is a virtue in writing, as I believe it to be, then Stevenson deserves praise for most admirable clarity. There is no difficulty of style. It is easy to read, because it has so much grace; but it is also easy to understand, because it is in a high degree explicit. It is essentially a prose style; as I think Stevenson was essentially a prose-writer. His poems have this same clearness (though surely he was never a master of poetic form to the extent to which he was a master of prose), and clearness in poetry is a less notable virtue than clearness in prose. Unless poetry expresses something that could not properly be expressed in prose it clearly has no claim upon our attention. The consequence of this is that Stevenson, who wrote very capable verses, does not impress us as a poet. Even in this respect, however, his clearness has its virtue; because the mark of the ostentatiously minor poet is obscurity of diction. Stevenson was not obscure in diction, and he was not obscure in thought, as so many writers with little to say are obscure. He went, in fact, to the other extreme. His poems are too explicit to be good poems. They are the poems of a man with all his wits about him; they are the poems of a man who always had his wits about him. I will go so far as to say that a man who always, in this common but expressive phrase, has his wits about him is never within measurable distance of being a poet.

If Stevenson’s habitual attitude of mind be then examined it will prove to be directly opposed to the habit of mind of the poet. He was about as poetic as a robin. But his habit of mind (unlike that of the robin) was moral as well as practical. It was not philosophical; nor would one willingly use in this connection the word spiritual. It was moral and practical; it was fundamentally a prose habit of mind. The highest and the lowest were alike strange to Stevenson’s mind; it had excellent equipoise, an admirable sanity. It had not, normally, a very wide range of sympathy or interest. I have explained this—or rather, I have tried to explain it—to some extent in earlier chapters; but in this place an explanation may be more clearly offered. Stevenson, we know, was an invalid; his vitality was poor, although the poverty of his vitality was partly concealed by a buoyancy of nervous high spirits. The tendency of all natures is to adjust the indulgence of emotion to the power of withstanding the reaction from such emotion. Highly emotional natures, unless they are morbid, seek instinctively to avoid the exhaustion which overstrained emotion produces. Delicate persons instinctively avoid mental exertion—not from lack of courage, or even from lack of intellectual strength; but purely from lassitude and the dread of lassitude. They do not essay long or vehement excursions from their base of common-sense; they must always be able to return the same night. That is because sustained imaginative effort, as well as poignant emotion, is instinctively recognised as dangerous. It is not that they lack the power to imagine or to feel deeply; it is simply that, as a measure for their own protection, they rely upon the virtues which are less intense and less exacting. They grow cautious. Stevenson was cautious. To him God was a kindly, well-intentioned person of infinite mercy; but He was not a terrible God, nor a God in Whom there was any mystery. If one had used the word “mystery” to Stevenson he would have thought inevitably of Gaboriau. I should explain that by suggesting—not that Stevenson was what is called “unimaginative,” but that his delicate body provoked the compromise. Otherwise he might have been a fanatic. Perhaps I am wrong; perhaps there was simply nothing of the mystic in Stevenson, and perhaps there was nothing of the mystic in Alison Cunningham. It is true that Stevenson’s early wrestlings with religious difficulties seem to have led him to conclusions strictly utilitarian, by which Christianity became a “body of doctrine” rather than a cloud of witnesses. Nevertheless, I am disposed to think that his apparent failure to apprehend any faith more exacting than a lucid morality or ethical code was caused throughout by physical weakness.

The point is interesting rather than conclusive; and it may be thought that Stevenson’s attitude to his art tells strongly against my hypothesis. He was essentially technical in his attitude to style and to art in general. He did not regard writing as a means of expressing truths; he seems to have regarded it as an end in itself. He does not seem to consider the notion of writing to express an idea; his impulse is to gather together as many incidents as will make a book. It is easy, of course, to take an unsophisticated view of art, and pretend that the artist invariably works with the aid of an inner light. I do not wish to pretend that the artist is such a mere instrument; particularly as the writer who claims to be no more than a medium is generally no less than a charlatan. But I cannot help remarking how entirely absent from any declaration by Stevenson is the sense of an artist’s profound disinterested imagining. So far from being profoundly disinterested, he seems to have followed here the custom he admits following in childhood, that of reading and watching everything for the sake of wrinkles subsequently to be used in play. It seems as though he took imaginative writing at its lowest valuation, as so much “fake,” as so much invention very ingeniously contrived but never really, in the last resort, perfectly believed by the creator—as, in fact, something “pretended.” Now Stevenson’s practice, in that case, is better than his theory. Scenes in his romances, and some of his short stories in bulk, are the work of an artist who was working at the bidding of his inspiration. Stevenson did, at these times, believe as an artist in the work he was making. I can give no account of the artist’s state of mind; but it is quite certain that Stevenson did not “pretend” his best work, and that no artist “pretends” his best work. An artist can distinguish between that part of his work which is the result of intense belief and that part which is agnostic. Stevenson seems not to have been so sure; for his aims, whether they are at “vitality” or at the death of the optic nerve and the adjective, suggest that he invariably adopted the attitude of the craftsman, the professional writer of novels for popular consumption. Even so, he is to be applauded for his freedom from artistic cant. If he is too intent upon rattling the bones, at least that is more candid than the habit of playing the priest.