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Robert Louis Stevenson-Part14_Alexander H.Japp(1839-1905)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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succeeds, it can only be because of strength in other elements, or

because of partialblindness and partially paralysed moral sense in



the case of those who accept it and joy in it. If Mr Pinero

directly disputes this, then he and I have no common standing-



ground, and I need not follow the matter any further. Of course,

the dramatist may, under mistakensympathy and in the midst of



complex and bewildering concatenations, give wrong readings to his

audience, but he must not be always doing even that, or doing it on



principle or system, else his work, however careful and

concentrated, will before long share the fate of the Stevenson-



Henley dramas confessedly wrought when the authors all too

definitely held bad-heartedness was strength.



CHAPTER XV - THEORY OF GOOD AND EVIL

WE have not hithertoconcerned ourselves, in any express sense,



with the ethical elements involved in the tendency now dwelt on,

though they are, of necessity, of a very vital character. We have



shown only as yet the effect of this mood of mind on dramatic

intention and effort. The position is simply that there is,



broadlyspeaking, the endeavour to eliminate an element which is

essential to successful dramatic presentation. That element is the



eternal distinction, speakingbroadly, between good and evil -

between right and wrong - between the secret consciousness" target="_blank" title="n.意识；觉悟；知觉">consciousness of



having done right, and the consciousness" target="_blank" title="n.意识；觉悟；知觉">consciousness of mere strength and force

in certain other ways.



Nothing else will make up for vagueness and cloudiness here - no

technical skill, no apt dialogue nor concentration, any more than



"fine speeches," as Mr Pinero calls them. Now the dramatic demand

and the ethical demand here meet and take each other's hands, and



will not be separated. This is why Mr Stevenson and Mr Henley -

young men of great talent, failed - utterly failed - they thought



they could make a hero out of a shady and dare-devil yet really

cowardly villain generally - and failed.



The spirit of this is of the clever youth type - all too ready to

forego the moral for the sake of the fun any day of the week, and



the unthinking selfishness and self-enjoyment of youth - whose

tender mercies are often cruel, are transcendent in it. As



Stevenson himself said, they were young men then and fancied bad-

heartedness was strength. Perhaps it was a sense of this that made



R. L. Stevenson speak as he did of the EBB-TIDE with Huish the

cockney in it, after he was powerless to recall it; which made him



say, as we have seen, that the closing chapters of THE MASTER OF

BALLANTRAE "SHAME, AND PERHAPS DEGRADE, THE BEGINNING." He himself



came to see then the great error; but, alas! it was too late to

remedy it - he could but go forward to essay new tales, not



backward to put right errors in what was done.

Did Mr William Archer have anything of this in his mind and the



far-reaching effects on this side, when he wrote the following:

"Let me add that the omission with which, in 1885, I mildly



reproached him - the omission to tell what he knew to be an

essential part of the truth about life - was abundantly made good



in his later writings. It is true that even in his final

philosophy he still seems to me to underrate, or rather to shirk,



the significance of that most compendious parable which he thus

relates in a letter to Mr Henry James:- 'Do you know the story of



the man who found a button in his hash, and called the waiter?

"What do you call that?" says he. "Well," said the waiter, "what



d'you expect? Expect to find a gold watch and chain?" Heavenly

apologue, is it not?' Heavenly, by all means; but I think



Stevenson relished the humour of it so much that he 'smiling passed

the moral by.' In his enjoyment of the waiter's effrontery, he



forgot to sympathise with the man (even though it was himself) who

had broken his teeth upon the harmful, unnecessary button. He



forgot that all the apologetics in the world are based upon just




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