Fundamentally Stevenson's style is marked by a conscious aim to
entertain. His engaging humor, free of all affectation, sentimentality,
and exaggeration, is spontaneous and natural. His most original writing
is _The Child's Garden of Verses_. His touch is light and his thought
is clear and lucid. _Across the Plains_ is written in his most
straightforward and natural style.
Stevenson was a careful writer, doing with great skill any established
piece of art. He practised diligently, and gained, as he himself
states, his high rank by constantly drilling himself in the art of
writing. This imitation of form to the point of perfection, rather than
an expression of a great and moving idea, gives an air of insincerity
to some of Stevenson's works. Yet, although seemingly artificial, he
never chose words for the sake of mere sounds, but for their accuracy
in truth and fitness. He was as an ephemeral shadow with an optimistic
and real spirit. He infused an intimacy and spirituality into his
writings that prove delightful to all his readers.
The subject of Markheim, a man failing through weakness, was a favorite
topic for Stevenson. Markheim is almost an ideal specimen of the
impressionistic short-story. It has a plot in which Hawthorne might
justly have revelled, a treatment as intellectual as that of Poe,
descriptions not unlike those of Flaubert's, and a moral ending true to
the Puritanic type. The movement of the story is swift and possesses
perfect unity. The surprise at the end comes as a shock although the
author has consistently and logically constructed his plot.