Borrow was a Romantic, so is Stevenson. Scott was a Romantic, likewise Edgar Allan Poe. If Romance be not a twin, then it must change its form and visage wondrously to appeal to temperaments so divergent. But if Romance be a twin (the conceit will serve our purpose) then one may realize how Scott and Borrow followed in the brother’s wake; Stevenson and Poe being drawn rather towards the sister.
In the case of Stevenson it may seem strange that one who wrote stirring adventures, who delighted boys of all ages with Treasure Island and Black Arrow (oh, excellent John Silver!), and followed in the steps of Sir Walter in The Master of Ballantrae and Catriona, should not be associated with the adventurous brother. But Scott and Stevenson have really nothing in common, beyond a love for the picturesque—and there is nothing distinctive in that. It is an essential qualification in the equipment of every Romantic. Adventures, as such, did not appeal to Stevenson, I think; it was the spice of mystery in them that attracted him. Watch him and you will find he is not content until he has thrown clouds of phantasy over his pictures. His longer stories have no unity—they are disconnected episodes strung lightly together, and this is why his short stories impress us far more with their power and brilliance.
Markheim and Jekyll and Hyde do not oppress the imagination in the same way as do Poe’s tales of horror; but they show the same passion for the dark corners of life, the same fondness for the gargoyles of Art. This is Romance on its mystic side.
Throughout his writings—I say nothing of his letters, which stand in a different category—one can hear
“The horns of Elfland faintly blowing.”
Sometimes the veil of phantasy is shaken by a peal of impish laughter, as if he would say, “Lord, what fools these mortals be!” but the attitude that persists—breaks there must be, and gusty moods, or it would not be Stevenson—is the attitude of the Romantic who loves rather the night side of things.
II
Much has been written about the eternal boy in Stevenson. I confess that this does not strike me as a particularly happy criticism. In a superficial sort of way it is, of course, obvious enough; he was fond of “make-believe”; took a boyish delight in practical joking; was ever ready for an adventure. But so complex and diverse his temperament that it is dangerous to seize on one aspect and say, “There is the real Stevenson.” Ariel, Hamlet, and the Shorter Catechist cross and recross his pages as we read them. Probably each reader of Stevenson retains most clearly one special phase. It is the Ariel in Stevenson that outlasts for
me the other moods. If any one phase can be said to strike the keynote of his temperament, it is the whimsical, freakish, but kindly Ariel—an Ariel bound in service to the Prospero of fiction—never quite happy, longing for his freedom, yet knowing that he must for a while serve his master. One can well understand why John Addington Symonds dubbed Stevenson “sprite.” This elfish dement in Stevenson is most apparent in his letters and stories.
The figures in his stories are less flesh-and-blood persons than the shapes—some gracious, some terrifying—that the Ariel world invoke. It is not that Stevenson had no grip on reality; his grip-hold on life was very firm and real. Beneath the light badinage, the airy, graceful wit that plays over his correspondence, there is a steel-like tenacity. But in his stories he leaves the solid earth for a phantastic world of his own. He does so deliberately: he turns his back on reality, has dealings with phantom passions. His historical romances are like ghostly editions of Scott. There is light, but little heat in his fictions. They charm our fancy, but do not seize upon our imagination. Stevenson’s novels remind one of an old Punch joke about the man who chose a wife to match his furniture. Stevenson chooses his personages to match his furniture—his cunningly-woven tapestries of style; and the result is that we are too conscious of the tapestry on the wall, too little conscious of the people who move about the rooms. If only Stevenson had suited his style to his matter, as he does in his letters, which are written in fine Vagabond spirit—his romances would have seemed less