“The ’eathen in ’is blindness bows down to wood ’an stone.
’E don’t obey no orders unless they is ’is own;
’E keeps ’is side arms awful: ’e leaves ’em all about,
An’ then comes up the regiment an’ pokes the ’eathen out.
The ’eathen in ’is blindness must end where ’e began,
But the backbone of the Army is the non-commissioned man.”
“L’Envoi” of “The Seven Seas” suggests the creed of a healthy soul: to accept true criticism; to find joy in work; to be honest in the search for truth; to believe that all our labor is under God, the Source of all knowledge and all good.
Robert Louis Stevenson is great as a novelist; he is greater in his brief writings and his letters. He presents some plain truths with attractive vigor. He says: “To have suffered, nay, to suffer, sets a keen edge on what remains of the agreeable. This is a great truth, and has to be learned in the fire.... In almost all circumstances the human soul can play a fair part.... To me morals, the conscience, the affections, and the passions are, I will own frankly and sweepingly, so infinitely more important than the other parts of life, that I conceive men rather triflers who become immersed in the latter. To me the medicine bottles on my chimney and the blood in my handkerchief are accidents; they do not color my view of life.... We are not put here to enjoy ourselves; it was not God’s purpose; and I am prepared to argue it is not our sincere wish.... Men do not want, and I do not think they would accept, happiness; what they live for is rivalry, effort, success. Gordon was happy in Khartoum, in his worst hours of danger and fatigue.”