or nothing of that inspiriting afflatus. He did his painstaking

work conscientiously, thoughtfully; he erased, he revised, and he
was hard to satisfy. In short, it was his weird - and he could not

resist it - to set style and form before fire and spirit."
CHAPTER XXIV - MR HENLEY'S SPITEFUL PERVERSIONS

MORE unfortunate still, as disturbing and prejudicing a sane and
true and disinterested view of Stevenson's claims, was that article

of his erewhile "friend," Mr W. E. Henley, published on the
appearance of the MEMOIR by Mr Graham Balfour, in the PALL MALL

MAGAZINE. It was well that Mr Henley there acknowledged frankly
that he wrote under a keen sense of "grievance" - a most dangerous

mood for the most soberlycritical and self-restrained of men to
write in, and that most certainly Mr W. E. Henley was not - and

that he owned to having lost contact with, and recognition of the
R. L. Stevenson who went to America in 1887, as he says, and never

came back again. To do bare justice to Stevenson it is clear that
knowledge of that later Stevenson was essential - essential whether

it was calculated to deepensympathy or the reverse. It goes
without saying that the Louis he knew and hobnobbed with, and

nursed near by the Old Bristo Port in Edinburgh could not be the
same exactly as the Louis of Samoa and later years - to suppose so,

or to expect so, would simply be to deny all room for growth and
expansion. It is clear that the W. E. Henley of those days was not

the same as the W. E. Henley who indited that article, and if
growth and further insight are to be allowed to Mr Henley and be

pleaded as his justification CUM spite born of sense of grievance
for such an onslaught, then clearly some allowance in the same

direction must be made for Stevenson. One can hardly think that in
his case old affection and friendship had been so completely

submerged, under feelings of grievance and paltry pique, almost
always bred of grievances dwelt on and nursed, which it is

especially bad for men of genius to acknowledge, and to make a
basis, as it were, for clearer knowledge, insight, and judgment.

In other cases the pleading would simply amount to an immediate and
complete arrest of judgment. Mr Henley throughout writes as though

whilst he had changed, and changed in points most essential, his
erewhile friend remained exactly where he was as to literary

position and product - the Louis who went away in 1887 and never
returned, had, as Mr W. E. Henley, most unfortunately for himself,

would imply, retained the mastery, and the Louis who never came
back had made no progress, had not added an inch, not to say a

cubit, to his statue, while Mr Henley remained IN STATU QUO, and
was so only to be judged. It is an instance of the imperfect

sympathy which Charles Lamb finelycelebrated - only here it is
acknowledged, and the "imperfect sympathy" pled as a ground for

claiming the full insight which only sympathy can secure. If Mr
Henley was fair to the Louis he knew and loved, it is clear that he

was and could only be unjust to the Louis who went away in 1887 and
never came back.

"At bottom Stevenson was an excellent fellow. But he was of his
essence what the French call PERSONNEL. He was, that is,

incessantly and passionately interested in Stevenson. He could not
be in the same room with a mirror but he must invite its

confidences every time he passed it; to him there was nothing
obvious in time and eternity, and the smallest of his discoveries,

his most trivial apprehensions, were all by way of being
revelations, and as revelations must be thrust upon the world; he

was never so much in earnest, never so well pleased (this were he
happy or wretched), never so irresistible as when he wrote about

himself. WITHAL, IF HE WANTED A THING, HE WENT AFTER IT WITH AN
ENTIRE CONTEMPT OF CONSEQUENCES. FOR THESE, INDEED, THE SHORTER

CATECHISM WAS EVER PREPARED TO ANSWER; SO THAT WHETHER HE DID WELL
OR ILL, HE WAS SAFE TO COME OUT UNABASHED AND CHEERFUL."

Notice here, how undiscerning the mentor becomes. The words put in
"italics," unqualified as they are, would fit and admirably cover

the character of the greatest criminal. They would do as they
stand, for Wainwright, for Dr Dodd, for Deeming, for Neil Cream,

for Canham Read, or for Dougal of Moat Farm fame. And then the
touch that, in the Shorter Catechism, Stevenson would have found a

cover or justification for it somehow! This comes of writing under
a keen sense of grievance; and how could this be truly said of one

who was "at bottom an excellent fellow." W. Henley's ethics are
about as clear-obscure as is his reading of character. Listen to

him once again - more directly on the literary point.
"To tell the truth, his books are none of mine; I mean that if I

wanted reading, I do not go for it to the EDINBURGH EDITION. I am
not interested in remarks about morals; in and out of letters. I

HAVE LIVED A FULL AND VARIED LIFE, and my opinions are my own. SO,
IF I CRAVE THE ENCHANTMENT OF ROMANCE, I ASK IT OF BIGGER MEN THAN

HE, AND OF BIGGER BOOKS THAN HIS: of ESMOND (say) and GREAT
EXPECTATIONS, of REDGAUNTLET and OLD MORTALITY, OF LA REINE MARGOT

and BRAGELONNE, of DAVID COPPERFIELD and A TALE OF TWO CITIES;
while if good writing and some other things be in my appetite, are

there not always Hazlitt and Lamb - to say nothing of that globe of
miraculous continents; which is known to us as Shakespeare? There

is his style, you will say, and it is a fact that it is rare, and
IN THE LAST times better, because much simpler than in the first.

But, after all, his style is so perfectly achieved that the
achievement gets obvious: and when achievement gets obvious, is it

not by way of becoming uninteresting? And is there not something
to be said for the person who wrote that Stevenson always reminded

him of a young man dressed the best he ever saw for the Burlington
Arcade? (10) Stevenson's work in letters does not now take me

much, and I decline to enter on the question of his immortality;
since that, despite what any can say, will get itself settled soon

or late, for all time. No - when I care to think of Stevenson it
is not of R. L. Stevenson - R. L. Stevenson, the renowned, the

accomplished - executing his difficult solo, but of the Lewis that
I knew and loved, and wrought for, and worked with for so long.

The successful man of letters does not greatly interest me. I read
his careful prayers and pass on, with the certainty that, well as

they read, they were not written for print. I learn of his
nameless prodigalities, and recall some instances of conduct in

another vein. I remember, rather, the unmarried and irresponsible
Lewis; the friend, the comrade, the CHARMEUR. Truly, that last

word, French as it is, is the only one that is worthy of him. I
shall ever remember him as that. The impression of his writings

disappears; the impression of himself and his talk is ever a
possession. . . . Forasmuch as he was primarily a talker, his

printed works, like these of others after his kind, are but a sop
for posterity. A last dying speech and confession (as it were) to

show that not for nothing were they held rare fellows in their
day."

Just a month or two before Mr Henley's self-revealing article
appeared in the PALL MALL MAGAZINE, Mr Chesterton, in the DAILY

NEWS, with almost propheticforecast, had said:
"Mr Henley might write an excellent study of Stevenson, but it

would only be of the Henleyish part of Stevenson, and it would show
a distinct divergence from the finished portrait of Stevenson,

which would be given by Professor Colvin."
And it were indeed hard to reconcile some things here with what Mr

Henley set down of individual works many times in the SCOTS AND
NATIONAL OBSERVER, and elsewhere, and in literary judgments as in

some other things there should, at least, be general consistency,
else the search for an honest man in the late years would be yet

harder than it was when Diogenes looked out from his tub!
Mr James Douglas, in the STAR, in his half-playful and suggestive

way, chose to put it as though he regarded the article in the PALL
MALL MAGAZINE as a hoax, perpetrated by some clever, unscrupulous

writer, intent on provoking both Mr Henley and his friends, and
Stevenson's friends and admirers. This called forth a letter from

one signing himself "A Lover of R. L. Stevenson," which is so good
that we must give it here.

A LITERARY HOAX.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE STAR.

SIR - I fear that, despite the charitable scepticism of Mr Douglas,
there is no doubt that Mr Henley is the perpetrator of the