Page:Literary studies by Joseph Jacobs.djvu/208

 idea had occupied Stevenson for long: it had been utilised in the drama of Deacon Brodie, and is referred to at the end of An Inland Voyage. Its artistic economy is almost perfect; every word tells. In the background looms one aspect of the great problem of sex which Stevenson elsewhere evaded or avoided. But the facing of the facts of life is straightforward and sincere. Mr. Hyde is as much part of the composite nature as is Dr. Jekyll.

It is curious that his other great popular success should have been made with a book of an entirely opposite character, as objective as the other was psychopathic, as open and straightforward as the other was weird and mystic. Treasure Island struck, if not a new note, a disused one in English fiction. He founded, or at least refounded, the plein air school. The moment was ripe and the man had come. The world was getting tired of analysis and introspection. It had had enough of looking on at painful paturitions of society nothings. Yet our gratitude to Stevenson need not be the less because he appeared when he was wanted. In literature, above all things, the master is paramount. There are always a number of facile pens that can write ditto to Mr. Burke. If Stevenson had chosen to develop the more morbid side of his genius, the world might have been flooded with