story, in whose mind 'the effect of night, of any flowing water, of
lighted cities, of the peep of day, of ships, of the open ocean,'

called up 'an army of anonymous desires and pleasures'? To have
the 'golden-tongued Romance with serene lute' for a mistress and

familiar is to be fortified against the assaults of tedium.
His attitude towards the surprising and momentous gifts of life was

one prolonged passion of praise and joy. There is none of his
books that reads like the meditations of an invalid. He has the

readiest sympathy for all exhibitions of impulsiveenergy; his
heart goes out to a sailor, and leaps into ecstasy over a generous

adventurer or buccaneer. Of one of his earlier books he says:
'From the negative point of view I flatter myself this volume has a

certain stamp. Although it runs to considerablyupwards of two
hundred pages, it contains not a single reference to the imbecility

of God's universe, nor so much as a single hint that I could have
made a better one myself.' And this was an omission that he never

remedied in his later works. Indeed, his zest in life, whether
lived in the back gardens of a town or on the high seas, was so

great that it seems probable the writer would have been lost had
the man been dowered with better health.

'Whereas my birth and spirit rather took
The way that takes the town,

Thou didst betray me to a ling'ring book,
And wrap me in a gown,'

says George Herbert, who, in his earlier ambitions, would fain have
ruffled it with the best at the court of King James. But from

Stevenson, although not only the town, but oceans and continents,
beckoned him to deeds, no such wail escaped. His indomitable

cheerfulness was never embarked in the cock-boat of his own
prosperity. A high and simple courage shines through all his

writings. It is supposed to be a normal human feeling for those
who are hale to sympathize with others who are in pain. Stevenson

reversed the position, and there is no braver spectacle in
literature than to see him not asking others to lower their voices

in his sick-room, but raising his own voice that he may make them
feel at ease and avoid imposing his misfortunes on their notice.

'Once when I was groaning aloud with physical pain,' he says in the
essay on CHILD'S PLAY, 'a young gentleman came into the room and

nonchalantly inquired if I had seen his bow and arrow. He made no
account of my groans, which he accepted, as he had to accept so

much else, as a piece of the inexplicable conduct of his elders;
and, like a wise young gentleman, he would waste no wonder on the

subject.' Was there ever a passage like this? The sympathy of the
writer is wholly with the child, and the child's absolute

indifference to his own sufferings. It might have been safely
predicted that this man, should he ever attain to pathos, would be

free from the facile, maudlin pathos of the hired sentimentalist.
And so also with what Dr. Johnson has called 'metaphysical

distresses.' It is striking enough to observe how differently the
quiet monasteries of the Carthusian and Trappist brotherhoods

affected Matthew Arnold and Robert Louis Stevenson. In his well-
known elegiac stanzas Matthew Arnold likens his own state to that

of the monks:
'Wandering between two worlds, one dead,

The other powerless to be born,
With nowhere yet to rest my head,

Like these on earth I wait forlorn.
Their faith, my tears, the world deride -

I come to shed them at their side.'
To Stevenson, on the other hand, our Lady of the Snows is a

mistaken divinity, and the place a monument of chilly error, - for
once in a way he takes it on himself to be a preacher, his

temperament gives voice in a creed:
'And ye, O brethren, what if God,

When from Heaven's top He spies abroad,
And sees on this tormented stage

The noble war of mankind rage,
What if His vivifying eye,

O monks, should pass your corner by?
For still the Lord is Lord of might;

In deeds, in deeds, He takes delight;
The plough, the spear, the laden barks,

The field, the founded city, marks;
He marks the smiler of the streets,

The singer upon garden seats;
He sees the climber in the rocks;

To Him, the shepherd folds his flocks;
For those He loves that underprop

With daily virtues Heaven's top,
And bear the falling sky with ease,

Unfrowning Caryatides.
Those He approves that ply the trade,

That rock the child, that wed the maid,
That with weak virtues, weaker hands,

Sow gladness on the peopled lands,
And still with laughter, song, and shout

Spin the great wheel of earth about.
But ye? - O ye who linger still

Here in your fortress on the hill,
With placid face, with tranquil breath,

The unsought volunteers of death,
Our cheerful General on high

With careless looks may pass you by!'
And the fact of death, which has damped and darkened the writings

of so many minor poets, does not cast a pallor on his conviction.
Life is of value only because it can be spent, or given; and the

love of God coveted the position, and assumed mortality" target="_blank" title="n.致命性；死亡率">mortality. If a man
treasure and hug his life, one thing only is certain, that he will

be robbed some day, and cut the pitiable and futile figure of one
who has been saving candle-ends in a house that is on fire. Better

than this to have a foolish spendthrift blaze and the loving cup
going round. Stevenson speaks almost with a personal envy of the

conduct of the four marines of the WAGER. There was no room for
them in the boat, and they were left on a desert island to a

certain death. 'They were soldiers, they said, and knew well
enough it was their business to die; and as their comrades pulled

away, they stood upon the beach, gave three cheers, and cried, "God
bless the King!" Now, one or two of those who were in the boat

escaped, against all likelihood, to tell the story. That was a
great thing for us' - even when life is extorted it may be given

nobly, with ceremony and courtesy. So strong was Stevenson's
admiration for heroic graces like these that in the requiem that

appears in his poems he speaks of an ordinary death as of a hearty
exploit, and draws his figures from lives of adventure and toil:

'Under the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie.

Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:
HERE HE LIES WHERE HE LONGED TO BE,

HOME IS THE SAILOR, HOME FROM THE SEA,
AND THE HUNTER HOME FROM THE HILL.'

This man should surely have been honoured with the pomp and colour
and music of a soldier's funeral.

The most remarkable feature of the work he has left is its singular
combination of style and romance. It has so happened, and the

accident has gained almost the strength of a tradition, that the
most assiduous followers of romance have been careless stylists.

They have trusted to the efficacy of their situation and incident,
and have too often cared little about the manner of its

presentation. By an odd piece of irony style has been left to the
cultivation of those who have little or nothing to tell. Sir

Walter Scott himself, with all his splendid romantic and tragic
gifts, often, in Stevenson's perfectly just phrase, 'fobs us off

with languid and inarticulate twaddle.' He wrote carelessly and
genially, and then breakfasted, and began the business of the day.

But Stevenson, who had romance tingling in every vein of his body,