IV
There seems to be a general tendency to protest against such opinions, not because the opinions are adequately countered, but because in most readers Stevenson produces a vague doting which is entirely uncritical. Stevenson in such warm hearts is incomparable; and a question is a perceptible rebuff to their confidingness. The prevailing feeling appears to be one of affectionate admiration, a matter of personal attraction rather than of critical esteem. Such a claim in any man is very far from being negligible. It is clear that the need of most people is an object of affection. They must love, or they cannot appreciate. The modern school of novelists, which tries to be very stern and almost legally unjust, provides little enough material for the loving hearts. The modern school says to its readers: “You are wicked, selfish, diseased, but horribly fascinating, and I’m going to set you right by diagnosis”; and the reader feels a sting in the fascination. Stevenson says, “We are all mighty fine fellows; and life is a field of battle; but it is better to be a fool than to be dead; and the true success is to labour”; and the reader feels that Stevenson is One of Us! He is not, that is to say, austere; he does not ask uncomfortable questions; he makes no claim upon his readers’ judgment, but only upon their self-esteem and their gratified assent. He even tells them about himself. He says, “I knew a little boy”; and his readers say: “It’s himself!” They read with enormous satisfaction.
Well, all that is delightful; but in its way it is a red-herring. It does not help us to assay the literary value of Stevenson’s work. It is simply a wide illustration of the fascination which Stevenson had for his friends. It is an extension of that rare thing, personal charm. We may say that it ought not to influence readers; and no doubt it influences some too-critical readers adversely (criticism being understood by all admirers of Stevenson as the merest corrosion); but the fact is that it cannot be ignored by anyone who seeks to account for Stevenson’s continued, and even now barely declining, popularity. Another very good reason is that Stevenson had extraordinarily good friends. I think it probable that no writer ever had friends more loyal and affectionate. They criticised his work privately to its great improvement, and then sold his work when it was completed, acting as counsellors and agents. And this was done with the same affectionate admiration which readers of his work still feel. He had few intimate friends, says Mrs. Stevenson: if friendship consisted in affection received (as distinguished from affection exchanged), I think Stevenson would have been in friends the richest man of his own generation. And since his death he has found a hundred thousand friends for every one he had during his lifetime. No man was ever richer in well-wishers. If he had few intimate friends that was because he was naturally reserved, or, as Mrs. Strong says, “secretive.” No doubt it was a part of his charm that his friends were mystified by his reserve: I do not see why his readers also should be mystified, for his writing is free of any mystery. I can only assume that a slight air of sentimentalism which runs through essays and romances alike, and over into such short stories as Will o’ the Mill and Markheim, combines with the thin optimism of the essays and the picturesque variety of incident of the romances to give body to this charm. I have stated in an earlier chapter the features of the romances which seem to me to be merits: it is not necessary to repeat the merits here. They include occasional pieces of distinguished imagination, a frequent exuberance of fancy, and a great freshness of incident which conceals lack of central or unifying idea and poverty of imagined character. Intrinsically, although their literary quality is much higher, the romances—with the possible exception of Kidnapped—are inferior to the work of Captain Marryat.