Robert Louis Stevenson and His Writing By M. G. Van Rensselaer
... All his friends praise the spirit that resided in this man. They delight to speak, not of special qualities and gifts, but of the man as a whole -- the character, the nature, the personality which his gifts and qualities composed. The doer, they tell us, was better than any of his deeds, his art in living finer than his art in writing: even more remarkable, more admirable, even less easily to be analyzed and explained. I was not a friend of his. I talked with him only once for a scanty hour. Yet this is the very fact which impels me to lay my little stone on the cairn that his friends are building. They may be attainted of conscious exaggeration, or at least of loving, if unwitting, bias -- but not I, the stranger. And, besides, an impression received by a stranger and preserved alone in the memory for years, neither disturbed nor reinforced by repetitions, may, if it tallies with the impressions left by long acquaintance, have a special value of its own.
This, then, is the stranger's witness, and it is precisely like the friend's: No man could have a more definite personality than Louis Stevenson's; none could more surely awaken immediate interest or exert a more instant charm, or could seem more convincingly to guarantee that the charm and interest would perennially flourish and increase. There is one kind of success which Stevenson rarely can have known - the slow subdual of indifference; and one kind of disappointment which he seldom can have felt -- the pause of the foot of friendliness on the threshold of love.
He was ill when I saw him in New York in the spring of 1888, after he had come down from the Adirondacks. He was in bed, as he often used to be for days together-- so often that the beautiful portrait which, in the previous autumn, St. Gaudens had made of him, backed by his pillows and covered by his blankets, must, I fancy, seem to many American friends the Stevenson whom they knew best. He was in a dismal hotel, in the most dismal possible chamber. Even a very buoyant soul might have been pardoned if, then and there, it had declined upon inactivity and gloom. But these were not the constituents of the atmosphere I found. There were a great many things on Stevenson's bed -- things to eat and to smoke, things to write with and to read. I have seen tidier sick-beds, and also invalids more modishly attired: this one wore over his shoulders an old red cloak with a hole for the head in the middle (a serape, I supposed), which, faded and spotted with ink, looked much like a school-room table-cloth. But the untidiness seemed a proof of his desire to make the most of each passing minute; clearly, the littering things had been brought, not in case they might be wanted, but as answers to actual and eager needs. Ill as he was, Stevenson had been reading and writing -- and smoking, as St. Gaudens shows; and in fact, I call him an invalid chiefly because, as I remember him, the term has such a picturesque unfitness. His body was in evil case, but his spirit was more bright, more eager, more ardently and healthily alive than that of any other mortal.
I find myself repeating the one word "eager." There is none which better befits Stevenson's appearance and manner and talk. His mind seemed to quiver with perpetual hope of something that would give it a new idea to feed upon, a new fact to file away, a new experience to be tested and savored. I could read this attitude even in the quick cordiality of his greeting. The welcome was not for me, as myself, but for the new person -- for the new human being, who, possessing ears and a tongue, might possibly contribute some item to the harvest of the day. Despite his mastery of the arts of language, I do not believe that Stevenson ever excelled in the artifice of small talk; he must always have had too many real words to say, and have felt too sure that other folk would like to hear them. This, indeed, was one great secret of his charm: he assumed that you too were alertly alive; he believed that you would understand and share his interest in all interesting things. Therefore one interview was enough to prove him what his friends assert and his books declare him to have been -- a philosopher very wise in that most precious kind of lore which gives the soul modesty and poise, cheerfulness, humor, and courage; a student of human nature, not with classifications and categories to fill out, but with a special welcoming niche prepared for the reception of each new human soul; a "detached intelligence," but a heart, intimately attached to every palpitant fiber in the web of existence, which loved to love, and chose for its hatred only fundamentally hateful and harmful things like hypocrisy, vanity, intolerance, and cowardice in the face of life. He seemed so individual, not because he was more eccentric than others, but because he was more genuine and more broad, more self-expressive, and possessed of a wider and richer self to lie explained.
Look at his portrait in profile, and you will see sensitiveness and refinement of a virile sort in the general cast of the face and head, sagacity in the long but not prominent nose, and poetic feeling in the contour of the brow. But in a full view the countenance was still more remarkable. The upper part, extraordinarily broad between the eyes, was deer-like in its gentle serenity, but the lower part, very narrow in comparison, was almost fox-like in its keen alertness; and the mobility of the mouth hardly seemed to fit with the steady intentness of the wide, dark eyes. But if at first this face appeared to contradict itself, the reason lay, I think, in the fact that we seldom see the face of a man who is at once a lover of action and a lover of dreams and of books, an astute and yet a most affectionate observer of life and of men and of the humors of the lives of men, and, besides, an artist of imaginative mold. I remember how Stevenson's face looked when he said that, long though he had been tied to sedentary habits, and deeply though he loved the art they permitted him to practice, the one thing in the world that he held to be the best was still the joy of outdoor living: it was a beautiful face just then, because it revealed a soul which could endure without bemoaning itself. And for the same reason it was beautiful again when it turned merry over a little tale of attempts to learn the art of knitting as a solace for hours of wearisome languor -- unavailing attempts, although he had persisted in them until he brought himself to the verge -- nay, he declared, actually over the verge -- of tears. An amusing little story it seemed as he told its details, yet in itself and in the manner of its telling it might have moved a listener to tears in his turn, so unconscious did the teller seem that a lifelong story of smiling conflict with bitter denials and restrictions, when reduced to its very lowest terms, then showed the very sharpest, most tragical edge of its pathos.
I should like to make you understand how Stevenson gave this story, and how he spoke (now with a very conscious pride) about the strategical soldier-games which, in scientific ways, he and his stepson were in the habit of playing; I should like to relate how he pounced upon every Americanism I chanced to utter, not deriding it, but shaking it in the teeth of a pleased curiosity as a bit of treasure-trove, a new fragment of speech with an origin, a history, a utility that must be learned; and in other ways to explain what a zest he had for those myriad little interests, little occupations, discoveries, and acquisitions, which make existence a perpetual joy to a fresh and questing mind, but which most adult minds have grown too stiff and dull to value. And of course I should like to record how he spoke about his own writings, and, with even quicker pleasure, talked about those of others. But to mummify beautiful, vivid speech is to do it deep injustice, and so I will not try to reproduce his words; and if I should try to paraphrase them, I should merely blur their meaning to myself and make it clear to no one else.
Rather, let us read once more in his printed pages. He was interpreting himself when he wrote, "Gentleness and cheerfulness -- these come before all morality; they are the perfect duties"; and again, quaintly, in one of his babyhood poems:
The world is so full of a number of things I'm sure we should all he as happy as kings.
To make other people happy, and to turn everything in the populous, Protean world to proflt and pleasure for himself by really seeing it and feeling it -- these were the key notes of Stevenson's fine philosophy; these were the cornerstones of that code of ethics which, put into practice under trials that we can hardly measure, enabled him to demonstrate, for the benefit of us all, what he once described as the great Theorem of the Liveableness of Life. And it was needful to define this code, this philosophy, in speaking of his art, because it inspired his books as well as his words and deeds, and not only their intellectual, but their esthetic, distinction. definitely esthetic gifts helped him, of course, in his conquest of an almost perfect style; but he was helped quite as much by his moral gifts: of course by that determination to make the most of existence which is the mainspring of industry, and by the patience, the cheerfulness, the hopefulness, the delight in small discoveries and achievements, which make industry a joy; and furthermore, by the gentleness and loving sympathy which alone can render a spirit clear and sensitive and logical, and by that desire to make other people happy which includes the belief that the end of all art is to please.
Brilliant as were Stevenson's powers of thought and word, he was no epigram-turner, no pyrotechnist in idea or expression. A clear and coherent train of thought runs through his most sparkling chapters; in its elucidation every phrase plays an indispensable role; and the garment of style fits the thought so closely that, although each sentence is in itself a work of art, none exists for itself, but all for the sake of the general effect of the whole.
Singularly excellent is this whole as a medium for the transference of thought; impeccably lucid and limpid, translating all shades of perception, sensation, and emotion with such ease and preciseness that the reader scarcely remembers he is absorbing the thought of another. But even this rare merit does not necessarily imply great charm of style. To achieve the highest kind of charm, of beauty, the ear must be enchanted while the mind is definitely and delicately led. If you do not possess an ear for the music of prose (which has nothing at all to do with the ear for music proper, and is different even from an ear for verse, and a good deal less common), no one can make you understand the extraordinary beauty of Stevenson's work. But if you do possess this organ, you will rate him, as an artist, at least as high as any poet. The essentials of good poetic form, with its organized measure and accentuation, and often its determined rhymes, are symmetry and balance, diversified uniformity, varied repetition, echoing assonance and resonance. The essentials of good prose form are a graceful asymmetry, a discreet avoidance of actual in favor of suggested balance, harmony in perpetual diversity, no obvious repetitions or echoings, and yet in every phrase a recognition of the form and color of all accompanying phrases. Thus a more subtle if not a higher technical sense goes to the making of very good prose than of even very good poetry: there are no formulas or rules to give assurance or warning, no signal-cries determined upon in advance, and thereafter loudly audible as helpers of a doubting ear.
The greatest danger which attends the would-be writer of harmonious prose is the pitfall laid by his knowledge of the sweet expedients of verse. It can hardly he said of any other modern writer of English whose pages are as musical as Stevenson's that he always avoids this pitfall. But in Stevenson's we never come upon the smallest fragment of pseudo-verse -- a too prettily rounded paragraph, a too surely expected cadence, a too evident balancing of phrases, a too regular arrangement of words or repetition of sounds. Of course he is never seduced by the vulgar charms of the rhetorical, the grandiloquent, or the sentimental mode; and it is almost an insult to take pains to say that he never descends to a "cheap finish," is never caught by the prompt appeal of trite verbal formulas, by the attractiveness of superfluous words or of words which do not precisely reproduce the thought, or by those terrible brummagem devices, like loud alliteration, which are so often loved by English writers when they aspire to style at all, and so generally accepted by the public as proofs of technical mastery. Perfect accord between sense and sound, perfect beauty of sound, and a perfect avoidance of palpable artifice -- these, with freshness and a very masculine vigor, are the qualities of Stevenson's prose style.
But the main fact which entitles it to be called a perfect style is its constancy in excellence and charm. It is always firm and complete in texture, and uniform in the sense that, while it varies in spirit to suit the subject in hand, it does not vary in quality from line to line, from page to page. I think that Stevenson himself has really written perfect pages; and at all events, his style delights us more as a whole than in any of its parts, striking or exquisite though many of these may still appear when torn away from their context. If you like best to be surl)rised by independent epigrams, by unexpected bursts of eloquence, by sudden marvels of expressional felicity, turn to some other writer. Stevenson will not amaze you thus. But, except very slightly now and then in his earliest efforts, he will never disappoint you or let you down. And this experience ought to seem more amazing than any other could. To do things flawlessly from end to end is a rarer and more satisfying merit than to do portions of them magnificently well. To strike a beautiful key and always maintain it, even when treating of ugly or commonplace things, and yet to keep the thing and its expression in accord -- this is the noblest of literary triumphs.
Hand in hand with such constancy in technical success goes, of course, great simplicity of means and method. Much splendor in treatment, much richness in the elements employed, may be perfectly managed in little pieces of work, or may make a large one so dazzlingly gorgeous that only a trained eye will perceive discrepancy between its parts. But this discrepancy must exist. The limitations of human power forbid that a cathedral shall be elaborated-chiseled and jeweled all over -- like a small shrine for the bones of a saint; and if the thing were done, the laws of art would forbid its looking well. No one could write a book from end to end as Ruskin has written his most sumptuous passages; and if he could, it woud weary and distress the reader. But The Pilgrim's Progress is homogeneous from end to end; its beauty is complete because the great artist who wrote it was classically serene and simple in style. And none of the emphatic and violent, the sweetly sentimental, the elaborately "precious," or the perfervid, luscious, and luxuriant writers of our day approaches Stevenson in his power to be always at his best. Yet, in saying that his work is beautiful, I have affirmed, of course, that its simplicity is never monotonous, bald, or hard. It is like the work of a Greek sculptor, which would be grievously deformed were it besprinkled with East Indian jewels.
Catholic in sympathy and eagerly active of brain, Stevenson wrote in many moods, and his style served him equally well in all. There is no greater pleasure than to prove these facts by reading, in close contrast, the stories and essays that most widely differ. Take "The Merry Men," for instance, and then "Will o' the Mill," "Pulvis et Umbra," "Markham," "The Flight through the Heather," and the mysterious tale of negro magic and tornadoes. Tone and temper could hardly vary more, and the words, as perspicuous and as beautiful in the one case as in the others, seem to have been twin-horn with the thoughts. But, oh, how far from the truth this seeming must lie! What unfaltering and delighted industry must have wrought this perfect union, in so many different keys, of thoughts, inchoate till the right words were found, with words which had to be chosen from among ten thousand, and arranged in the one right way of many score! Only those who have tried to write can fancy it all. Only those who have never quite succeeded can properly envy the feeling Stevenson must have known each time he inscribed his "Finis." Doubtless in his later years the work went more easily than at first. But work it must always have been, and the joy in its completion can never have decreased; for, once they are successfully outlived, the memory of our most desperate hours of struggle remains to give to readier accomplishment a delicious flavor of surprise. And this is not the least among the facts which proclaim, quite unmistakably, the livablness of life. The simplicity of Stevenson's style is very notable in connection with its frequent poetic force. Not more for poetical suggestiveness than for dramatic charity or for picturesqueness in narration did he need to draw upon flourishing turns of phrase, or upon words that are strikingly sonorous, recondite, or even uncommon. Take this passage, for example: "And if he had anything like the same inspiring weather, the same nights of uproar, men in armor rolling and resounding down the stairs of heaven, the rain hissing on the village streets, the wild bull's-eye of the storm flashing all night long into the bare inn chambher --the same sweet return of day, the same unfathomable blue of noon, the same high-colored halcyon eves" -- I need not finish the sentence, for these words suffice. If you find them unpoetic because with one exception they are simple and common words, while that one is scarcely rare, then you must be among those who think that wine is not wine unless it is heated and spiced.
Again, Stevenson's exquisite mastery of the means of expression nowhere does him better service than in translating his gently smiling outlook upon life. Of course he is never, crudely, a maker of mirth, although upon occasion there is an actual laugh in his words. But he is always the man of humor. Sometimes you scarcely notice that he smiles; but when you lay down the book your heart is warm, and this is proof of the smile, and also of its difference from the grin of the cynic or the simper of the fatuous. And often his smiling sparkles like sunlight on water, or glows like a hearth-fire cheering some dusky chamber of thought into which he has bidden us to consider themes as tragical as "sad stories of the death of kings." No one but a great artist can thus blend emotions, infusing gloom with the reflection of cheerfulness, and merriment with the memory of the pathos of all life. Every one of us feels this blending at times; but an incomparable skill in words is needed to express it without affectation or excess.
There are many other things which should be said of Stevenson's art in writing. Here, however, I can only try to tell what, in a personal way, it has meant to me, and thus explain with more distinctness why I could not withhold my hand from its praise.
I can fairly complain that the technical struggle has been much harder for me than for the majority. Yet I can fairly boast that I have loved it better than the majority, even in its hardest and dullest phases, and that (I remember how Stevenson applauded when he had drawn out the confession) twenty rewritings, in whole or in part, and thirty, and fifty, have often come within my not unpleased experience. Yet one day last winter, when I tried to write, neither the effort nor the result seemed in the least worth while. A useless task, a savorless possible success -- this is what I felt. And then, suddenly, the difference between todlay and yesterday proved itself an echo of my knowledge that Stevenson had died. Of course I had never looked forward to writing as he did: there are bounds to sane ambitions. And I had never expected him to read what I might write, much less to approve it. Yet somewhere, I now discovered, although I had not clearly realized the truth before -- somewhere down in the bottom of my heart had always been the feeling: If he does chance to see this, what a pity if it should be less good than, with every effort, I can manage to make it; and what a triumph if it should be good enough for him to read without actual distress! Such, I now discovered, had been the spur; very vague and foolish and unreasonable; but how potent, how helpful, how insistent in its sharp monitions, how delightfully warming in its utterly vague reminders of a possible crown for what I knew to be an all-but-impossible true success -- this I realized on the day of which I speak, and this I shall never again forget. For now that the throne of the prince is vacant in our little world of art, in our strenuous little world of oft-defrauded but perennial aspiration, I feel that there will never again be quite as much joy in the technical struggle; and I know that, even if I could ever write a page as he wrote hundreds, success would bring a pang of disappointment -- now that the most foolish dreamer can no longer anticipate that happy hour in which Stevenson was to smile and to say, "Well done."
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