Page:Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson, Hitherto unpublished, 1921.djvu/26

 of readers to give themselves to the cult of a charming poet for children, a courageous mentor and fascinating companion of youth, a lay-preacher with a gospel of cheery optimism drawn from triumph over suffering and adapted to all human beings whatever their time and condition of life. It was equally natural for Stevenson's intimate friends, who believed that the side of his character which contemporaries admired was the best and truest side of the man they knew and loved, not to dwell upon another side of him, especially of his earlier self, which did not so justly and fully represent him, and called for no emphasis in those days when his fame was in the making. Yet, whatever Henley's lack of tact and his underlying promptings, conscious or unconscious, his protest, we cannot but feel, was one that had to be made sooner or later, and now that those most likely to be vitally affected by resolute biographical realism have passed away, it is not treasonable to Stevenson's memory to hope that the publication by The Bibliophile Society of manuscripts which he did not destroy and must consequently, in a sense, have destined to publication, will [ 20 ]