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 But no one has dealt more drastically with Stevenson than Mr. Swinnerton himself, and no one has said nastier things about him and about those who persist in admiring him. Doubtless he knows what he is about. He calls it criticism, but he means war. Stevenson persists in enchanting readers generation after generation. He fails to "senesce" as a writer should do who has been before us so long. Mr. Swinnerton desires to give him a knock-out blow and to drag him out of the circle of his glamour, so that there will be elbow room and attention for "the modern school of novelists." But let the Stevensonians consider the mortal nature of such thrusts as these—if they really reach home, if they really touch the man we know:

In short, this R. L. S., it seems, was a swathed, coddled, and timorous weakling of a tedious virtuosity, consciously fashioning toys and polishing truisms "fit to be culled and calendared for suburban households."

Now, I confess that I enjoy the clash of school with school in a struggle for survival, and I like encounter