Page:A bibliography of the works of Robert Louis Stevenson.djvu/14

Rh difficulty in the matter. With a frail and sapless body, Stevenson possessed a singularly healthy mind and a temperament which enabled him to face the ills of life with unflinching courage. Constant ill-health, the frequent apprehension of poverty, and a series of discouragements which far exceeded the ordinary allowance of humanity, were met, at one time with the humorous acquiescence of a Thomas More, at another with a deeper fortitude which threw an answering glove into the face of Destiny. Courage with him was the virtue which all the others presuppose, and it requires little reflection to perceive that superiority to weakness or vice cannot exist without it. It is this quality which runs like a golden thread through his life and work, and which is the secret of his charm. No writer has ever thrown more of himself into his works; no one has illumined his surroundings more vividly with the rays of his individuality; and it would be possible to arrange his essays in an order which would portray his inward and outward life from childhood to middle age.

A discussion of the character of Stevenson is not, however, the task that I have set myself. One could say much upon the strenuous novitiate through which he passed while preparing himself for the duties of authorship, and the discipline in taste which resulted in resenting the intrusion of the valueless word. Too much perhaps has been written about his style, and the image of the 'sedulous ape' has been chased to death. His style, like the style of all great writers, was individual: and, though as a student he saturated vi