long as there are students of English Literature. Surely the
portrait of one for whom such a claim may legitimately be made
cannot be considered
altogetherworthy" target="_blank" title="a.不值得的;不足道的">
unworthy of a place in the National
Collection, as one of Scotland's most
distinguished sons.
"2. The only other reason which can be suggested as having weighed
with the Trustees in their decision is one which in some cases
might be held to be
worthy of
consideration. It is conceivable
that in the case of some men the Trustees might be of opinion that
there was plenty of time to consider the matter, and that in the
meantime there was always the chance of some
generous donor
presenting them with a
portrait. But, as has been shown above, the
portraits of Stevenson are practically confined to two: one of
these is in America, and there is not the least chance of its ever
coming here; and the other they have refused. And, as it is
understood that the Trustees have a rule that they do not accept
any
portrait which has not been painted from the life, they
preclude themselves from acquiring a copy of any existing picture
or even a
portrait done from memory.
"It is rumoured that the Nerli
portrait may
ultimately find a
resting-place in the National Collection of Portraits in London.
If this should prove to be the case, what a
commentary on the old
saying: 'A
prophet is not without honour save in his own
country.'"
CHAPTER XXXIII - LAPSES AND ERRORS IN CRITICISM
NOTHING could perhaps be more wearisome than to travel o'er the
wide sandy area of Stevenson
criticism and
commentary, and expose
the many and sad and
grotesque errors that meet one there. Mr
Baildon's slip is
innocent, compared with many when he says (p.
106) TREASURE ISLAND appeared in YOUNG FOLKS as THE SEA-COOK. It
did nothing of the kind; it is on plain record in print, even in
the pages of the EDINBURGH EDITION, that Mr James Henderson would
not have the title THE SEA-COOK, as he did not like it, and
insisted on its being TREASURE ISLAND. To him,
therefore, the
vastly better title is due. Mr Henley was in doubt if Mr Henderson
was still alive when he wrote the
brilliant and elevated article on
"Some Novels" in the NORTH AMERICAN, and as a certain dark bird
killed Cock Robin, so he killed off Dr Japp, and not to be outdone,
got in an ideal "Colonel" JACK; so Mr Baildon there follows Henley,
unaware that Mr Henderson did not like THE SEA-COOK, and was still
alive, and that a certain Jack in the fatal NORTH AMERICAN has
Japp's credit.
Mr Baildon's words are:
"This was the famous book of ad
venture, TREASURE ISLAND, appearing
first as THE SEA-COOK in a boy's paper, where it made no great
stir. But, on its
publication in
volume form, with the vastly
better title, the book at once 'boomed,' as the
phrase goes, to an
extent then, in 1882, almost
unprecedented. The secret of its
immense success may almost be expressed in a
phrase by
saying that
it is a book like GULLIVER'S TRAVELS, THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS, and
ROBINSON CRUSOE itself for all ages - boys, men, and women."
Which just shows how far lapse as to a fact may lead to critical
mis
readings also.
Mr Hammerton sometimes lets good folks say in his pages, without
correction, what is certainly not correct. Thus at one place we
are told that Stevenson was only known as Louis in print, whereas
that was the only name by which he was known in his own family.
Then Mr Gosse, at p. 34, is allowed to write:
"Professor Blackie was among them on the
steamer from the Hebrides,
a famous figure that calls for no
description, and a voluble shaggy
man, clad in
homespun, with spectacles forward upon his nose, who
it was whispered to us, was Mr Sam Bough, the Scottish Academician,
A WATER-COLOUR PAINTER OF SOME REPUTE, who was to die in 1878."
Mr Sam Bough WAS "a water-colour
painter of some
repute," but a
painter in oils of yet greater
repute - a man of rare strength,
resource, and
facility - never, perhaps,
wholly escaping from some
traces of his early experiences in scene-painting, but a true
genius in his art. Ah, well I remember him, though an older man,
yet
youthful in the band of young Scotch artists among whom as a
youngster I was
privileged to move in Edinburgh - Pettie, Chalmers,
M'Whirter, Peter Graham, MacTaggart, MacDonald, John Burr, and
Bough. Bough could be voluble on art; and many a talk I had with
him as with the others named, e
specially with John Burr. Bough and
he both could talk as well as paint, and talk right well. Bough
had a slight cast in the eye; when he got a WEE excited on his
subject he would come close to you with head shaking, and
spectacles displaced, and forelock wagging, and the cast would seem
to die away. Was this a fact, or was it an
illusion on my part? I
have often asked myself that question, and now I ask it of others.
Can any of my good friends in Edinburgh say; can Mr Caw help me
here, either to
confirm or to correct me? I
venture to
insert here
an
anecdote, with which my friend of old days, Mr Wm. MacTaggart,
R.S.A., in a letter kindly favours me:
"Sam Bough was a very sociable man; and, when on a sketching tour,
liked to have a young artist or two with him. Jack Nisbett played
the
violin, and Sam the 'cello, etc. Jack was fond of telling that
Sam used to let them all choose the best views, and then he would
take what was left; and Jack, with mild
astonishment, would say,
that 'it generally turned out to be the best - on the canvas!'"
In Mr Hammerton's copy of the verses in reply to Mr Crockett's
dedication of THE STICKIT MINISTER to Stevenson, in which occurred
the fine
phrase "The grey Galloway lands, where about the graves of
the martyrs the whaups are crying, his heart remembers how":
"Blows the wind to-day and the sun and the rain are flying:
Blows the wind on the moors to-day and now,
Where about the graves of the martyrs the whaups are crying,
My heart remembers how.
"Grey recumbent tombs of the dead in desert places,
Standing stones on the
vacant wine-red moor,
Hills of sheep, and the HOMES of the silent vanished races,
And winds
austere and pure.
"Be it granted me to behold you again in dying,
Hills of home! and to hear again the call -
Hear about the graves of the martyrs the pee-weet crying,
And hear no more at all."
Mr Hammerton prints HOWES instead of HOMES, which I have italicised
above. And I may note, though it does not
affect the
poetry, if it
does a little
affect the natural history, that the PEE-WEETS and
the whaups are not the same - the one is the curlew, and the other
is the lapwing - the one most frequenting wild, heathery or peaty
moorland, and the other
pasture or even ploughed land - so that it
is a great pity for unity and
simplicity alike that Stevenson did
not repeat the "whaup," but wrote rather as though pee-weet or pee-
weets were the same as whaups - the common call of the one is KER-
LEE, KER-LEE, and of the other PEE-WEET, PEE-WEET, hence its common
name.
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
significantpamphlet - 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