A History of English Literature

STEVENSON. Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), the first of the rather
prominent group of recent Scotch writers of fiction, is as different as
possible from Hardy. Destined for the career of civil engineer and
lighthouse builder in which his father and grandfather were distinguished,
he proved unfitted for it by lack both of inclination and of health, and
the profession of law for which he later prepared himself was no more
congenial. From boyhood he, like Scott, studied human nature with keen
delight in rambles about the country, and unlike Scott he was incessantly
practising writing merely for the perfection of his style. As an author he
won his place rather slowly; and his whole mature life was a wonderfully
courageous and persistent struggle against the sickness which generally
prevented him from working more than two or three hours a day and often
kept him for months in bed unable even to speak. A trip to California in an
emigrant train in 1879-1880 brought him to death's door but accomplished
its purpose, his marriage to an American lady, Mrs. Osbourne, whom he had
previously met in artist circles in France. He first secured a popular
success with the boys' pirate story, 'Treasure Island,' in 1882. 'A Child's
Garden of Verses' (1885) was at once accepted as one of the most
irresistibly sympathetic of children's classics; and 'The Strange Case of
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' (1886), a unique and astonishingly powerful moral
lesson in the form of a thrilling little romance which strangely
anticipates the later discoveries of psychology, made in its different way
a still stronger impression. Stevenson produced, considering his
disabilities, a remarkably large amount of work--essays, short stories, and
romances--but the only others of his books which need here be mentioned are
the four romances of Scotch life in the eighteenth century which belong to
his later years; of these 'The Master of Ballantrae' and the fragmentary
'Weir of Hermiston' are the best. His letters, also, which, like his
widely-circulated prayers, reveal his charming and heroic personality, are
among the most interesting in the history of English Literature. His bodily
weakness, especially tuberculosis, which had kept him wandering from one
resort to another, at last drove him altogether from Europe to the South
Seas. He finally settled in Samoa, where for the last half dozen years of
his life he was busy not only with clearing his land, building his house,
and writing, but with energetic efforts to serve the natives, then involved
in broils among themselves and with England, Germany, and the United
States. His death came suddenly when he was only forty-four years old, and
the Samoans, who ardently appreciated what he had done for them, buried him
high up on a mountain overlooking both his home and the sea.
Stevenson, in the midst of an age perhaps too intensely occupied with the
deeper questions, stood for a return to the mere spirit of romance, and for
occasional reading he furnishes delightful recreation. In the last
analysis, however, his general lack of serious significance condemns him at
most to a secondary position. At his best his narrative technique (as in
'The Master of Ballantrae') is perfect; his portrayal of men (he almost
never attempted women) is equally certain; his style has no superior in
English; and his delicate sensibility and keenness of observation render
him a master of description. But in his attitude toward life he never
reached full maturity (perhaps because of the supreme effort of will
necessary for the maintenance of his cheerfulness); not only did he retain
to the end a boyish zest for mere adventure, but it is sometimes adventure
of a melodramatic and unnecessarily disagreeable kind, and in his novels
and short stories he offers virtually no interpretation of the world. No
recent English prose writer has exercised a wider influence than he, but
none is likely to suffer as time goes on a greater diminution of
reputation.
RUDYARD KIPLING. The name which naturally closes the list of Victorian