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Robert Louis Stevenson-Part5_Walter Raleigh(1861-1922)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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with secretaries paid or unpaid: the hunt of the Deserving Poor

goes merrily forward. I think it will take a more than merely



human secretary to disinter that character. What! a class that is

to be in want from no fault of its own, and yet greedily eager to



receive from strangers; and to be quite respectable, and at the

same time quite devoid of self-respect; and play the most delicate



part of friendship, and yet never be seen; and wear the form of

man, and yet fly in the face of all the laws of human nature: - and



all this, in the hope of getting a belly-god burgess through a

needle's eye! Oh, let him stick, by all means; and let his polity



tumble in the dust; and let his epitaph and all his literature (of

which my own works begin to form no inconsiderable part) be



abolished even from the history of man! For a fool of this

monstrosity of dulness there can be no salvation; and the fool who



looked for the elixir of life was an angel of reason to the fool

who looks for the Deserving Poor.'



An equal sense of the realities of life and death gives the force

of a natural law to the pathos of OLD MORTALITY, that essay in



which Stevenson pays passionatetribute to the memory of his early

friend, who 'had gone to ruin with a kinglyabandon, like one who



condescended; but once ruined, with the lights all out, he fought

as for a kingdom.' The whole description, down to the marvellous



quotation from Bunyan that closes it, is one of the sovereign

passages of modern literature; the pathos of it is pure and



elemental, like the rush of a cleansing wind, or the onset of the

legions commanded by



'The mighty Mahmud, Allah-breathing Lord,

That all the misbelieving and black Horde



Of Fears and Sorrows that infest the Soul

Scatters before him with his whirlwind Sword.'



Lastly, to bring to an end this imperfectreview of the works of a

writer who has left none greater behind him, Stevenson excels at



what is perhaps the most delicate of literary tasks and the utmost

test, where it is successfully encountered, of nobility, - the



practice, namely, of self-revelation and self-delineation. To talk

much about oneself with detail, composure, and ease, with no shadow



of hypocrisy and no whiff or taint of indecent familiarity, no

puling and no posing, - the shores of the sea of literature are



strewn with the wrecks and forlorn properties of those who have

adventured on this dangerous attempt. But a criticism of Stevenson



is happy in this, that from the writer it can pass with perfect

trust and perfect fluency to the man. He shares with Goldsmith and



Montaigne, his own favourite, the happy privilege of making lovers

among his readers. 'To be the most beloved of English writers -



what a title that is for a man!' says Thackeray of Goldsmith. In

such matters, a dispute for pre-eminence in the captivation of



hearts would be unseemly; it is enough to say that Stevenson too

has his lovers among those who have accompanied him on his INLAND



VOYAGE, or through the fastnesses of the Cevennes in the wake of

Modestine. He is loved by those that never saw his face; and one



who has sealed that dizzy height of ambition may well be content,

without the impertinent assurance that, when the Japanese have



taken London and revised the contents of the British Museum, the

yellow scribes whom they shall set to produce a new edition of the



BIOGRAPHIE UNIVERSELLE will include in their entries the following

item: - 'STEVENSON, R. L. A PROLIFIC WRITER OF STORIES AMONG THE



ABORIGINES. FLOURISHED BEFORE THE COMING OF THE JAPANESE. HIS

WORKS ARE LOST.'



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