More unfortunate still, as disturbing and prejudicing a sane and true and
disinterested view of Stevenson's claims, was that article of his
erewhile "friend," Mr W. E. Henley, published on the appearance of the
_Memoir_ by Mr Graham Balfour, in the _Pall Mall Magazine_. It was well
that Mr Henley there acknowledged frankly that he wrote under a keen
sense of "grievance"--a most dangerous mood for the most soberly critical
and self-restrained of men to write in, and that most certainly Mr W. E.
Henley was not--and that he owned to having lost contact with, and
recognition of the R. L. Stevenson who went to America in 1887, as he
says, and never came back again. To do bare justice to Stevenson it is
clear that knowledge of that later Stevenson was essential--essential
whether it was calculated to deepen sympathy or the reverse. It goes
without saying that the Louis he knew and hobnobbed with, and nursed near
by the Old Bristo Port in Edinburgh could not be the same exactly as the
Louis of Samoa and later years--to suppose so, or to expect so, would
simply be to deny all room for growth and expansion. It is clear that
the W. E. Henley of those days was not the same as the W. E. Henley who
indited that article, and if growth and further insight are to be allowed
to Mr Henley and be pleaded as his justification _cum_ spite born of
sense of grievance for such an onslaught, then clearly some allowance in
the same direction must be made for Stevenson. One can hardly think that
in his case old affection and friendship had been so completely
submerged, under feelings of grievance and paltry pique, almost always
bred of grievances dwelt on and nursed, which it is especially bad for
men of genius to acknowledge, and to make a basis, as it were, for
clearer knowledge, insight, and judgment. In other cases the pleading
would simply amount to an immediate and complete arrest of judgment. Mr
Henley throughout writes as though whilst he had changed, and changed in
points most essential, his erewhile friend remained exactly where he was
as to literary position and product--the Louis who went away in 1887 and
never returned, had, as Mr W. E. Henley, most unfortunately for himself,
would imply, retained the mastery, and the Louis who never came back had
made no progress, had not added an inch, not to say a cubit, to his
statue, while Mr Henley remained _in statu quo_, and was so only to be
judged. It is an instance of the imperfect sympathy which Charles Lamb
finely celebrated--only here it is acknowledged, and the "imperfect
sympathy" pled as a ground for claiming the full insight which only
sympathy can secure. If Mr Henley was fair to the Louis he knew and
loved, it is clear that he was and could only be unjust to the Louis who
went away in 1887 and never came back.
"At bottom Stevenson was an excellent fellow. But he was of his
essence what the French call _personnel_. He was, that is,
incessantly and passionately interested in Stevenson. He could not be
in the same room with a mirror but he must invite its confidences
every time he passed it; to him there was nothing obvious in time and
eternity, and the smallest of his discoveries, his most trivial
apprehensions, were all by way of being revelations, and as
revelations must be thrust upon the world; he was never so much in
earnest, never so well pleased (this were he happy or wretched), never
so irresistible as when he wrote about himself. _Withal_, _if he
wanted a thing_, _he went after it with an entire contempt of
consequences_. _For these_, _indeed_, _the Shorter Catechism was ever
prepared to answer_; _so that whether he did well or ill_, _he was
safe to come out unabashed and cheerful_."
Notice here, how undiscerning the mentor becomes. The words put in
"italics," unqualified as they are, would fit and admirably cover the
character of the greatest criminal. They would do as they stand, for
Wainwright, for Dr Dodd, for Deeming, for Neil Cream, for Canham Read, or
for Dougal of Moat Farm fame. And then the touch that, in the Shorter
Catechism, Stevenson would have found a cover or justification for it
somehow! This comes of writing under a keen sense of grievance; and how
could this be truly said of one who was "at bottom an excellent fellow."
W. Henley's ethics are about as clear-obscure as is his reading of
character. Listen to him once again--more directly on the literary
point.
"To tell the truth, his books are none of mine; I mean that if I
wanted reading, I do not go for it to the _Edinburgh Edition_. I am
not interested in remarks about morals; in and out of letters. _I
have lived a full and varied life_, and my opinions are my own. _So_,
_if I crave the enchantment of romance_, _I ask it of bigger men than
he_, _and of bigger books than his_: of _Esmond_ (say) and _Great
Expectations_, of _Redgauntlet_ and _Old Mortality_, _of La Reine
Margot_ and _Bragelonne_, of _David Copperfield_ and _A Tale of Two
Cities_; while if good writing and some other things be in my
appetite, are there not always Hazlitt and Lamb--to say nothing of
that globe of miraculous continents; which is known to us as
Shakespeare? There is his style, you will say, and it is a fact that
it is rare, and _in the last_ times better, because much simpler than
in the first. But, after all, his style is so perfectly achieved that
the achievement gets obvious: and when achievement gets obvious, is it
not by way of becoming uninteresting? And is there not something to
be said for the person who wrote that Stevenson always reminded him of
a young man dressed the best he ever saw for the Burlington Arcade?
{10} Stevenson's work in letters does not now take me much, and I
decline to enter on the question of his immortality; since that,
despite what any can say, will get itself settled soon or late, for
all time. No--when I care to think of Stevenson it is not of R. L.
Stevenson--R. L. Stevenson, the renowned, the accomplished--executing
his difficult solo, but of the Lewis that I knew and loved, and
wrought for, and worked with for so long. The successful man of
letters does not greatly interest me. I read his careful prayers and
pass on, with the certainty that, well as they read, they were not
written for print. I learn of his nameless prodigalities, and recall
some instances of conduct in another vein. I remember, rather, the
unmarried and irresponsible Lewis; the friend, the comrade, the
_charmeur_. Truly, that last word, French as it is, is the only one
that is worthy of him. I shall ever remember him as that. The
impression of his writings disappears; the impression of himself and
his talk is ever a possession. . . . Forasmuch as he was primarily a
talker, his printed works, like these of others after his kind, are
but a sop for posterity. A last dying speech and confession (as it
were) to show that not for nothing were they held rare fellows in
their day."
Just a month or two before Mr Henley's self-revealing article appeared in
the _Pall Mall Magazine_, Mr Chesterton, in the _Daily News_, with almost
prophetic forecast, had said:
"Mr Henley might write an excellent study of Stevenson, but it would
only be of the Henleyish part of Stevenson, and it would show a
distinct divergence from the finished portrait of Stevenson, which
would be given by Professor Colvin."
And it were indeed hard to reconcile some things here with what Mr Henley
set down of individual works many times in the _Scots and National
Observer_, and elsewhere, and in literary judgments as in some other
things there should, at least, be general consistency, else the search
for an honest man in the late years would be yet harder than it was when
Diogenes looked out from his tub!
Mr James Douglas, in the _Star_, in his half-playful and suggestive way,
chose to put it as though he regarded the article in the _Pall Mall
Magazine_ as a hoax, perpetrated by some clever, unscrupulous writer,
intent on provoking both Mr Henley and his friends, and Stevenson's
friends and admirers. This called forth a letter from one signing
himself "A Lover of R. L. Stevenson," which is so good that we must give
it here.
A LITERARY HOAX.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE _STAR_.
SIR--I fear that, despite the charitable scepticism of Mr Douglas,
there is no doubt that Mr Henley is the perpetrator of the saddening
Depreciation of Stevenson which has been published over his name.
What openings there are for reprisals let Mr Henley's conscience tell
him; but permit me to remind him of two or three things which R. L.
Stevenson has written concerning W. E. Henley.
First this scene in the infirmary at Edinburgh:
"(Leslie) Stephen and I sat on a couple of chairs, and the poor fellow
(Henley) sat up in his bed with his hair and beard all tangled, and
talked as cheerfully as if he had been in a king's palace, or the
great King's palace of the blue air. He has taught himself two
languages since he has been lying there. _I shall try to be of use to
him_."
Secondly, this passage from Stevenson's dedication of _Virginibus
Puerisque_ to "My dear William Ernest Henley":
"These papers are like milestones on the wayside of my life; and as I
look back in memory, there is hardly a stage of that distance but I
see you present with advice, reproof, or praise. Meanwhile, many
things have changed, you and I among the rest; but I hope that our
sympathy, founded on the love of our art, and nourished by mutual
assistance, shall survive these little revolutions, undiminished, and,
with God's help, unite us to the end."
Thirdly, two scraps from letters from Stevenson to Henley, to show
that the latter was not always a depreciator of R. L. Stevenson's
work:
"1. I'm glad to think I owe you the review that pleased me best of all
the reviews I ever had. . . . To live reading such reviews and die
eating ortolans--sich is my aspiration.
"2. Dear lad,--If there was any more praise in what you wrote, I
think--(the editor who had pruned down Mr Henley's review of
Stevenson's _Prince Otto_) has done us both a service; some of it
stops my throat. . . . Whether (considering our intimate relations)
you would not do better to refrain from reviewing me, I will leave to
yourself."
And, lastly, this extract from the very last of Stevenson's letters to
Henley, published in the two volumes of _Letters_:
"It is impossible to let your new volume pass in silence. I have not
received the same thrill of poetry since G. M.'s _Joy of Earth_
volume, and _Love in a Valley_; and I do not know that even that was
so intimate and deep. . . . I thank you for the joy you have given me,
and remain your old friend and present huge admirer, R. L. S."
It is difficult to decide on which side in this literary friendship lies
the true modesty and magnanimity? I had rather be the author of the last
message of R. L. Stevenson to W. E. Henley, than of the last words of W.
E. Henley concerning R. L. Stevenson.