It is a pity, too, that Mr Hammerton has no records of some portions of the life at Davos Platz.Not only was Stevenson ill there in April 1892, but his wife collapsed, and the tender concern for her made havoc with some details of his literary work.It is good to know this.Such errata or omissions throw a finer light on his character than controlling perfection would do.Ah, I remember how my old friend W.B.Rands ("Matthew Browne" and "Henry Holbeach") was wont to declare that were men perfect they would be isolated, if not idiotic, that we are united to each other by our defects - that even physical beauty would be dead like later Greek statues, were these not departures from the perfect lines.The letter given by me at p.28 transfigures in its light, some of his work at that time.
And then what an opportunity, we deeply regret to say, Mr Hammerton wholly missed, when he passed over without due explanation or commentary that most significant pamphlet - the ADDRESS TO THE SCOTTISH CLERGY.If Mr Hammerton had but duly and closely studied that and its bearings and suggestions in many directions, then he would have written such a chapter for true enlightenment and for interest as exactly his book - attractive though it is in much -
yet specially lacks.It is to be hoped that Mr Sidney Colvin will not once more miss the chance which is thus still left open to him to perfect his LIFE OF STEVENSON, and make it more interpretive than anything yet published.If he does this, then, a dreadful LACUNA in the EDINBURGH EDITION will also be supplied.
Carefully reading over again Mr Arthur Symons' STUDIES IN TWO
LITERATURES - published some years ago - I have come across instances of apparent contradiction which, so far as I can see, he does not critically altogether reconcile, despite his ingenuity and great charm of style.One relates to Thoreau, who, while still "sturdy" as Emerson says, "and like an elm tree," as his sister Sophia says, showed exactly the same love of nature and power of interpreting her as he did after in his later comparatively short period of "invalidity," while Mr Symons says his view of Nature absolutely was that of the invalid, classing him unqualifiedly with Jefferies and Stevenson, as invalid.Thoreau's mark even in the short later period of "invalidity" was complete and robust independence and triumph over it - a thing which I have no doubt wholly captivated Stevenson, as scarce anything else would have done, as a victory in the exact ROLE he himself was most ambitious to fill.For did not he too wrestle well with the "wolverine" he carried on his back - in this like Addington Symonds and Alexander Pope? Surely I cannot be wrong here to reinforce my statement by a passage from a letter written by Sophia Thoreau to her good friend Daniel Ricketson, after her brother's death, the more that R.L.
Stevenson would have greatly exulted too in its cheery and invincible stoicism:
"Profound joy mingles with my grief.I feel as if something very beautiful had happened - not death; although Henry is with us no longer, yet the memory of his sweet and virtuous soul must ever cheer and comfort me.My heart is filled with praise to God for the gift of such a brother, and may I never distrust the love and wisdom of Him who made him and who has now called him to labour in more glorious fields than earth affords.You ask for some particulars relating to Henry's illness.I feel like saying that Henry was never affected, never reached by it.I never before saw such a manifestation of the power of spirit over matter.Very often I heard him tell his visitors that he enjoyed existence as well as ever.The thought of death, he said, did not trouble him.
His thoughts had entertained him all his life and did still....He considered occupation as necessary for the sick as for those in health, and accomplished a vast amount of labour in those last few months."
A rare "invalidity" this - a little confusing easy classifications.
I think Stevenson would have felt and said that brother and sister were well worthy of each other; and that the sister was almost as grand and cheery a stoic, with no literary profession of it, as was the brother.
The other thing relates to Stevenson's HUMAN SOUL.I find Mr Symons says, at p.243, that Stevenson "had something a trifle elfish and uncanny about him, as of a bewitched being who was not actually human - had not actually a human soul" - in which there may be a glimmer of truth viewed from his revelation of artistic curiosities in some aspects, but is hardly true of him otherwise;
and this Mr Symons himself seems to have felt, when, at p.246, he writes: "He is one of those writers who speak TO US ON EASY TERMS, with whom we MAY EXCHANGE AFFECTIONS." How "affections" could be exchanged on easy terms between the normal human being and an elfish creature actually WITHOUT A HUMAN SOUL (seeing that affections are, as Mr Matthew Arnold might have said, at least, three-fourths of soul) is more, I confess, than I can quite see at present; but in this rather MALADROIT contradiction Mr Symons does point at one phase of the problem of Stevenson - this, namely that to all the ordinary happy or pleasure-endings he opposes, as it were of set purpose, gloom, as though to certain things he was quite indifferent, and though, as we have seen, his actual life and practice were quite opposed to this.
I am sorry I CANNOT find the link in Mr Symons' essay, which would quite make these two statements consistently coincide critically.
As an enthusiastic, though I hope still a discriminating, Stevensonian, I do wish Mr Symons would help us to it somehow hereafter.It would be well worth his doing, in my opinion.
