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Robert Louis Stevenson-Part24_Alexander H.Japp(1839-1905)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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daily miss, as that character was displayed in circumstances



unknown to me, I think that I ought to speak of him as I found him.

Perhaps our sympathy was mainlyintellectual. Constantly do those



who knew him desire to turn to him, to communicate with him, to

share with him the pleasure of some idea, some little discovery



about men or things in which he would have taken pleasure,

increasing our own by the gaiety of his enjoyment, the brilliance



of his appreciation. We may say, as Scott said at the grave of

John Ballantyne, that he has taken with him half the sunlight out



of our lives. That he was sympathetic and interested in the work

of others (which I understand has been denied) I have reason to



know. His work and mine lay far apart: mine, I think, we never

discussed, I did not expect it to interest him. But in a



fragmentary manuscript of his after his death I found the unlooked

for and touching evidence of his kindness. Again, he once wrote to



me from Samoa about the work of a friend of mine whom he had never

met. His remarks were ideally judicious, a model of serviceable



criticism. I found him chivalrous as an honest boy; brave, with an

indomitable gaiety of courage; on the point of honour, a Sydney or



a Bayard (so he seemed to me); that he was open-handed I have

reason to believe; he took life 'with a frolic welcome.' That he



was self-conscious, and saw himself as it were, from without; that

he was fond of attitude (like his own brave admirals) he himself



knew well, and I doubt not that he would laugh at himself and his

habit of 'playing at' things after the fashion of childhood.



Genius is the survival into maturity of the inspiration of

childhood, and Stevenson is not the only genius who has retained



from childhood something more than its inspiration. Other examples

readily occur to the memory - in one way Byron, in another



Tennyson. None of us is perfect: I do not want to erect an

immaculate clay-cold image of a man, in marble or in sugar-candy.



But I will say that I do not remember ever to have heard Mr

Stevenson utter a word against any mortal, friend or foe. Even in



a case where he had, or believed himself to have, received some

wrong, his comment was merely humorous. Especially when very



young, his dislike of respectability and of the BOURGEOIS (a

literary tradition) led him to show a kind of contempt for virtues



which, though certainly respectable, are no less certainly

virtuous. He was then more or less seduced by the Bohemian legend,



but he was intolerant of the fudge about the rights and privileges

of genius. A man's first business, he thought, was 'keep his end



up' by his work. If, what he reckoned his inspired work would not

serve, then by something else. Of many virtues he was an ensample



and an inspiring force. One foible I admit: the tendency to

inopportune benevolence. Mr Graham Balfour says that if he fell



into ill terms with a man he would try to do him good by stealth.

Though he had seen much of the world and of men, this practice



showed an invincible ignorance of mankind. It is improbable, on

the doctrine of chances, that he was always in the wrong; and it is



probable, as he was human, that he always thought himself in the

right. But as the other party to the misunderstanding, being also



human, would necessarily think himself in the right, such secret

benefits would be, as Sophocles says, 'the gifts of foeman and



unprofitable.' The secret would leak out, the benefits would be

rejected, the misunderstanding would be embittered. This reminds



me of an anecdote which is not given in Mr Graham Balfour's

biography. As a little delicate, lonely boy in Edinburgh, Mr



Stevenson read a book called MINISTERING CHILDREN. I have a faint

recollection of this work concerning a small Lord and Lady



Bountiful. Children, we know, like to 'play at' the events and

characters they have read about, and the boy wanted to play at



being a ministering child. He 'scanned his whole horizon' for

somebody to play with, and thought he had found his playmate. From



the window he observed street boys (in Scots 'keelies') enjoying

themselves. But one child was out of the sports, a little lame



fellow, the son of a baker. Here was a chance! After some




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