case its truth and originality can hardly | ciplined to it. But it is probably very be denied.

There is another branch of Mr. Stevenson's writings -to be done with this ungrateful task of fault-finding which I cannot care for as literature; but he is not solely responsible. He has written several plays with Mr. Henley, of which two, I think, were acted. With everything in their favor, they have not succeeded on the stage; and they make, by comparison, very poor reading. One striking scene with the blind pirate Pew is so good an occasion for Mr. Stevenson to be at his best in prose narrative, that I grudge it to this setting.

rare for a writer to do what is really the most important part of the composition in his sleeping existence; very rare, and not healthy, one may suppose. Sometimes the finished result speaks forcibly of its origin. "Olalla " is little more than a vivid dream .but how vivid! and in the earlier books certain characters have something whimsical and inconsequent in their actions (the boy, for instance, in "Treasure Island"), which relates them to the land of visions. On the other hand, scenes and persons have that physical vividness and totality of impression which is produced only by And it is, of course, in prose narra- a remembered dream. In real life the tive that he is at his very best. For, attention is distracted by a mass of deafter all, this business of criticising, tail, and in recalling an Occurrence which is commenting on other folks' | some irrelevant circumstance is sure to ideas, and essay writing, which is ser- reappear. But when a thing has been monizing (the easiest form of composi-seen by the mind's eye alone, the mind tion), are a very different matter from reproduces it with more artistic selecsitting down, as the children say, to make something "out of your own head." Creative work takes rank immeasurably in front of what is often (oddly enough) called " pure literature;" it is as a story-teller, not as au essayist, that Mr. Stevenson will go down to posterity. The "New Arabian Nights" began the list of his published tales, and however people may differ about his other books, every one likes this; it is brimful of youth from the first page to the last. The fantastic element which has throughout characterized his work (Attwater is the latest example) ran riot in these stories. One might theorize to account for this element, had not Mr. Stevenson himself (as usual) told us all about it; that is to say, he dreams certain situations, which may or may not fully explain themselves; and the waking part of The book which is most dreamlike in the work is merely to fill up gaps and the bad sense, where everything seems put the whole into language. This is vague, irrational, and unaccountable, is not altogether a new thing. Scott used" Prince Otto," for a long time my to go to bed with the knot of his story favorite, and not yet wholly dethroned; unsolved, confident that things would but which, by reason of these defects, unravel when he was dressing next did not succeed. The one which has morning. Doubtless his brownies, like most of a dream's vivid pictorial quality Mr. Stevenson's, became educated, and is undoubtedly "The Strange Case of did their work better as they were dis- Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." What

No

tion; in short, mind more clearly
recalls the impressions of mind than of
sense. Few scenes that I have assisted
at few, if any come up before my
consciousness with the same vividness
as the murder done upon the island,
when Silver knocked the sailor down
with his crutch and stabbed him.
doubt if I could draw the scene I
should draw it differently from Mr.
Stevenson himself; but that is neither
here nor there. Mind does not picture
in line, but through the medium of
several senses at once. I seem to hear
the man's gasp as the crutch took him
between the shoulders.
The pictures
would disagree in detail precisely
the detail upon which mind does not
insist -but Mr. Stevenson has con-
veyed the essence of the scene, and it
is to me as if I had dreamed it myself.

T

1

piece of prose fiction is less likely to be | the other books meet comparison on
forgotten? To begin with, the central equal terms, and well they can afford
idea, strange as it is, at once comes to do so. I set aside for the present
home to everybody. The double per- those where the issue is obscured by
sonality, which the very habit of a Mr. Lloyd Osbourne's share in the
dream-land existence must have forced work; that leaves two volumes of
iu upon Mr. Stevenson, corresponds short tales, "The Merry Men" and
with facts of which we are all obscurely the "Island Night's Entertainment,"
conscious. It heightens immensely the several of them equal to Mérimée's
interest of a book thus to carry an best work; what more can one
allegory on the very face of it, provided | say? "Markheim," I think, has re-
that the allegory does not interfere mained the distinctest in my memory;
with the illusion, but speaks the moral "Thrawn Janet," which has been so
with the poignancy of life itself. Fur-highly praised, I always read with ad-
ther, this is the only case where Mr. miration, but it does not haunt me.
Stevenson, working by himself, has Then there are four long stories,
used a mystery; and most skilfully it is" Kidnapped " and its sequel, “Catri-
used in the opening chapters to stimu- ona,' "The Master of Ballantrae,"
late curiosity. The book falls into and one decided failure, the "Black
three parts. First, the mystery, which Arrow." About "Kidnapped" there
is set out with wonder that rises from is a consensus of enthusiasm. Mr.
the mere question of an onlooker about | Barrie, in a clever but unfair paper,
this uncanny person Hyde, to the
agonized inquiry of Jekyll's friend,
who knows all but the answer to the
riddle, when he batters at Jekyll's
locked door, and is answered by the
voice of Hyde. Then follows the ex-
planation; and remark the skill with
which a medical man is made the wit-
ness of the change. He recounts the
phenomena with a practised accuracy
which would have been unnatural, say,
in Utterson. In the third part, when
the mystery has been solved, nothing
but consummate art could have saved
the interest from collapsing. But
Jekyll's own written statement gives it is better
the crowning emotion when it recites" Catriona " but because it lacks
the drama that passed in the study inspiration, because the characters are
behind the locked door; the appalling uninteresting. It is "a novel of ad-
conflict between the two personages in venture," to adopt the author's own
the same outwardly changing breast. classification; and so, as he urges of
Other writers have approached the another book, it needs only a limited
same idea. Gautier, for instance, has a presentment of qualities. That is very
curious story of a gentleman who gets true, but one has to be made believe
translated into another man's body to in people sufficiently to feel with or
court the other's wife; but Mr. Steven- against them. Here they are never
son has everything to gain by the com- real, and when a touch of genuine na-
parison. Remember the passage where ture comes in, the old ruined captain
Jekyll wakes for the first time to find inconsolable for his ship and his man
that he has in sleep become Hyde, and Tom, it makes pasteboard of the sur-
the look of Hyde's hairy hand on the roundings. The "novel of character,"
sheet.
"which appeals to our intellectual ap-
"Dr. Jekyll" is almost sui generis;preciation of man's foibles and mingled

in his "Edinburgh Eleven," calls it a boy's book. So it is. -a boy's book that all men delight in; though why it should be called a boy's book more than the Odyssey I cannot see. The "Black Arrow," again, is a failure, relatively speaking, that is to say, it is not so good as Dr. Conan Doyle's "White Company.' But surely to say, as Mr. Barrie does, that it ought never to have been published, is a singular pretension. Is a painter, for instance, only to sell his masterpieces? The book is a failure, not because it is ill-planned or carelessly wroughtplanned, I think, than

66

and inconstant motives," Mr. Steven- | cellences. As far as she is concerned, son has hardly attempted on his own the book is romance, and she only account, but his phrase applies well needs to be invested with the approto parts of the "Wrecker." "Kid-priate qualities. So long as she is helpnapped" is pure romance, and the less, yet bold, childishly innocent, yet "Master of Ballantrae "" a noble exam- passionately loving, she is sufficiently ple of the dramatic novel. Compare depicted. David Balfour is the narraAlan Breck's fight in the round-house tor; we see events with his eyes, and of the brig Covenant with the duel of we must be content to see Catriona the brothers. In the first your whole with them too. The weak point is that attention is claimed for the action it- the relations between David and the self; you want to see a 'bonny lord advocate are eminently dramatic ; fighter" at work. Well, here he is for and they practically fill up the first half you. Incidentally you learn what Da- of the book. Catriona is seldom on vid's feelings are when he kills a man the stage; for these scenes Miss Grant for the first time; but the fight is is better fitted, a capital dramatic figure. the thing. In the duel, actions are She is an immense advance upon merely the outward expression of pas- Alicia, who plays a very similar part sions; it is Henry Durie's words and in the "Black Arrow." But she ships looks that concern you, not the sword off David and Catriona to the Low play. The physical impression given Countries-drama ceases and the rois not less vivid - the candles gutter-mance begins. Now to pass from ing under the trees, a cramped space of light in the vast blackness; but the interest is in men's minds, not in their swords. These two books it were superfluous to praise further; but "Catriona," which stands on the debatable ground between romance and drama, has not so secure a footing. For once the author's cunning in construction has failed him. All the earlier chapters of the book are braced up with expectation of the great trial; but the climax of the book is not the climax they lead up to. David's love affair" Master of Ballantrae," is a proper culminates charmingly after various revolutions; but the master interest of the opening, his enterprise to save James Stewart from the Campbells, is huddled away into inglorious confusion. I suspect Mr. Stevenson of a moral; he may have meant that David's matter-of-fact heroism was not the less It remains to consider the three volheroic because he too was found no umes of which Mr. Lloyd Osbourne is more than “ a faithful failure." None part author; and these books present the less, it is true that the book the highly interesting problem: To snaps in sunder midway, much as the determine Mr. Osbourne's share in the "Wrecker" does; and the latter half work. For my own part, I give it up. forms a very decided anti-climax. It There is hardly a page in all three is different from the first half in kind; which Mr. Stevenson might not connot only that, but it is the weaker suc- ceivably have written; there are many ceeding the stronger. Ladies complain pages, many episodes, which one that Catriona is a doll, not a woman; would say Mr. Stevenson must have but this is to ask for incompatible ex-written, were it not for the fear of an

drama to romance is to pass from the more complex to the simple, from the more developed to the less developed form of art. It is a mistake too, in a dramatic novel, to make a principal character the narrator, because we must get a merely partial view of the other personages. Mr. Stevenson has to get over the difficulty the best way he can by making David intolerably judicial-the lad is eternally finding excuses for the lord advocate. Mackellar, who relates the story of the

person to do so, because he has complete knowledge of the action, yet plays a subalteru part in its conduct. Thus out of the combination of two types in "Catriona," there results a certain incongruity. Yet I have not read a novel since that I liked so well.

appeal to those who know. Certain his personality disengages itself, he is passages, like the French scenes in the a past-master in slang (I pity the for"Wrecker," may, on external evi- eigner who attempts these books), with dence, be ascribed to him; and a a pronounced taste for shady charachighly competent critic has pointed out ters. The "Wrong Box" is, of course, in the Speaker that these passages not to be taken seriously; it is in the constitute the book's defect. Yet is it key of farce, very good farce too. not strange that Mr. Quiller Couch Complications follow one another with should not be able otherwise to distin- kaleidoscopic variety and swiftness, and guish the hands? For "Q" is not if there were a Mrs. John Wood in it, merely an admirable writer of fiction; it would be equal to the "Magistrate.” he is the man among the younger But a pretty set of people we are ingroup of novelists who has followed vited to know; even Michael Finsbury, most implicitly Mr. Stevenson's advice the hero, is a smart lawyer, the terto imitate good models, and of all his ror of blackmailers, and a tower of imitations the cleverest is "Gabriel strength in breach of promise, but Foot, Highwayman,' which might hardly to be mistaken for a gentleman. pass unchallenged beside "Markheim " The "Wrecker" is a work of a very itself. But though the fusion of parts different class. Not to be grateful for is so complete within the covers as to Pinkerton would be barbarous; and I defy an expert to separate them, there doubt if he is chiefly Mr. Stevenson's. is no danger of our confusing one of So long as he is a felt presence, I have these books with the genuine Steven- no quarrel with the book. But it is sou. They do "something smack, a jumble, of delightful elements no something grow to." Nobody likes doubt, "a monster olio of attractions," Lafitte to be laced with brandy, though like the Dromedary picnics; but still it were "warranted entire," like Pink-a jumble. Student life in Paris is erton's "Three Star," and that is why always interesting, but memory has got Mr. Osbourne has been a good deal execrated. No book of Mr. Stevenson ever left a bad taste in my mouth; no book of the collaboration has ever failed to do so. The Wrong Box" is funny enough, but it is gruesome jesting that turns on a putrefying corpse. The butchery on board the Flying Scud I have once re-read, and mean in future to skip; as for the "Ebbtide," no one ever pretended it was agreeable reading. The very first sentence gives the note:

Throughout the island world of the Pacific, scattered men of many European races and from almost every grade of society carry activity and disseminate dis

ease.

Compare with this story the "Beach of Falesà," a sufficiently uncompromising piece of realism; yet you go away from the reading of it braced and happy. There, at all events, human nature is at flood.

The presence of Mr. Osbourne seems, in short, fatal to romance. As far as

the better of Mr. Stevenson, and we have more of it than is necessary to develop Pinkerton and Dodd; and in a chapter about San Francisco the novel drops entirely, while Mr. Stevenson's reminiscences of the City of the Golden Gate furnish out a sublimated padding. For a man with so much of interest to tell and such a style to tell it in, the temptation must have been overwhelming; but it was a temptation to stray from his better ideals, against which the dramatic method of his own novels guarded him. Moreover, a study of speculators has its appropriate and superb adventure in the story of the wreck; but when we stray off to follow Mr. Norris Carthew, we lose touch with Pinkerton, and Pinkerton is the soul of the book.

The "Ebbtide" is stronger work than its predecessors; had it borne any name but Mr. Stevenson's, it would have been hailed as a work of genius. As a piece of writing it shows in their extreme the merits and defects of this wonderful manner. Here are two in

stances from the "Wrecker" and the "Ebbtide" respectively:

The clouds hung low and black on the surrounding amphitheatre of mountains; rain had fallen earlier in the day, real tropic rain, a waterspout for violence.

- so strange was the sight, so dire the fears it wakened. I looked right and left; 1 stood and listened till my ears ached, but the ground was so hard, it told no story. the night was hollow about me like an empty church; not even a ripple stirred upon the shore; it seemed you might have heard a pin drop in the county.

Yet, as Mr. Quiller Couch has said in the criticism before referred to, Attwater is probably Mr. Stevenson's.

A French man-of-war was going out, homeward bound; she lay in the middle distance of the port, an ant-heap for activity. Surely this is a mannerism. But here is another sentence from the "Ebb-Attwater is a fatalist, so, you rememtide :

It was now the fourth month completed, and still there was no change or sign of change. The moon, racing through a world of flying clouds of every size, shape, and density, some black as ink stains, some delicate as lawn, threw the marvel of her southern brightness over the same lovely

and detested scene.

ber, was Prince Florizel; the ending is a fresh chapter from some new Arabian Nights. But after that savage realism, what frame of mind are we in to meet Prince Florizel or any of his cousins ? No doubt the authors wanted a contrast; the cockney with his vitriol in this fairyland of nature. But the opposition is too glaring, and him. The mind looks round for some as for Mr. Attwater, my gorge rises at

Is not the effect of those epithets mag ical in beauty and suggestion? And is not "the fourth month" a trifle relief, some decent human nature to affected for April? Yet need I quote rest on; and the best it gets is the the page which describes the Faral- drunken captain with his little Adar. lone's entry into the lagoon? Which-He, at least, if he had died with the ever hand wove that intricate web of words was indeed a master in the craft. Even if we take it that just there Mr. Stevenson held the pen, Mr. Osbourne, though he may not equal such a passage yet indubitably possesses a manner not to be distinguished from that of the elder writer. But can he do

this? Mackellar is the narrator:

and

The

prayer for his children on his lips,
would have died like a man; but he is
spared to become a hysterical convert,
holding his virtue on the absence of
temptation.
other conclusion
would certainly have made Attwater
intolerable, and the scene brutal be-
yond all bounds; but I should have
preferred prompt fate for Captain

Davis.

I groped my way down-stairs, and out at However, this is to be the last of the the door. From quite a far way off a collaborations, we are told; and we sheen was visible, making points of brightness in the shrubbery; in so black a night shall, many of us, look forward with it might have been remarked for miles; no less expectation than curiosity to a blamed myself bitterly for my incau- single-handed venture of Mr. Osbourne. tion. How much more sharply when I But we cannot have him turning our reached the place! One of the candle- choicest vintage wine into a questionsticks was overthrown, and that taper quenched. The other burned steadily by itself, and made a broad space of light upon the frosted ground. All within that circle seemed, by the force of contrast and the overcharging blackness, brighter than dy bay. And there was the blood-stain in the midst; and a little way farther off Mr. owed to the spirit of his work. EveryHenry's sword, the pommel of which was of silver; but of the body, not a trace. My heart thumped upon my ribs, the hair stirred on my scalp, as I stood there staring

able blend. The truth is, we have come to look to Mr. Stevenson to redeem the tendencies of contemporary fiction; our debt to him cannot be measured by his influence on technical skill. The highest praise due to him is

where in it are present what he has himself called "the radical qualities of honor, humor, and pathos." He does not talk of a moral purpose, as is the