Stevenson had a motley personality, which is sufficiently evident in
his portraits. There was in him the Puritan, the man of the world, and
the vagabond. There was something too of the obsolete soldier of
fortune, with the cocked and feathered hat, worn audaciously on one
side. There was also a touch of the elfin, the uncanny--the mysterious
charm that belongs to the borderland between the real and the unreal
world--the element so conspicuous and so indefinable in the art of
Hawthorne. Writers so different as Defoe, Cooper, Poe, and Sir Thomas
Browne, are seen with varying degrees of emphasis in his literary
temperament. He was whimsical as an imaginative child; and everyone
has noticed that he never grew old. His buoyant optimism was based on
a chronic experience of physical pain, for pessimists like
Schopenhauer are usually men in comfortable circumstances, and of
excellent bodily health. His courage and cheerfulness under depressing
circumstances are so splendid to contemplate that some critics believe
that in time his _Letters_ may be regarded as his greatest literary
work, for they are priceless in their unconscious revelation of a
beautiful soul.
Great as Stevenson was as a writer, he was still greater as a Man. So
many admirable books have been written by men whose character will not
bear examination, that it is refreshing to find one Master-Artist
whose daily life was so full of the fruits of the spirit. As his
romances have brought pleasure to thousands of readers, so the
spectacle of his cheerful march through the Valley of the Shadow of
Death is a constant source of comfort and inspiration. One feels
ashamed of cowardice and petty irritation after witnessing the steady
courage of this man. His philosophy of life is totally different from
that of Stoicism; for the Stoic says, "Grin and bear it," and usually
succeeds in doing neither. Stevenson seems to say, "Laugh and forget
it," and he showed us how to do both.
Stevenson had the rather unusual combination of the Artist and the
Moralist, both elements being marked in his writings to a very high
degree. The famous and oft-quoted sonnet by his friend, the late Mr.
Henley, gives a vivid picture:
"Thin-legged, thin-chested, slight unspeakably,
Neat-footed and weak-fingered: in his face--
Lean, large-honed, curved of beak, and touched with race,
Bold-lipped, rich-tinted, mutable as the sea,
The brown eyes radiant with vivacity--
There shown a brilliant and romantic grace,
A spirit intense and rare, with trace on trace
Of passion, impudence, and energy.
Valiant in velvet, light in ragged luck,
Most vain, most generous, sternly critical,
Buffoon and poet, lover and sensualist;
A deal of Ariel, just a streak of Puck,
Much Antony, of Hamlet most of all,
And something of the Shorter Catechist."
He was not primarily a moral teacher, like Socrates or Thomas Carlyle;
nor did he feel within him the voice of a prophetic mission. The
virtue of his writings consists in their wholesome ethical quality, in
their solid health. Fresh air is often better for the soul than the
swinging of the priest's censer. At a time when the school of Zola was
at its climax, Stevenson opened the windows and let in the pleasant
breeze. For the morbid and unhealthy period of adolescence, his books
are more healthful than many serious moral works. He purges the mind
of uncleanness, just as he purged contemporary fiction.
As Stevenson's correspondence with his friends like Sidney Colvin and
William Archer reveals the social side of his nature, so his
correspondence with the Unseen Power in which he believed shows that
his character was essentially religious. A man's letters are often a
truer picture of his mind than a photograph; and when these epistles
are directed not to men and women, but to the Supreme Intelligence,
they form a real revelation of their writer's heart. Nothing betrays
the personality of a man more clearly than his prayers, and the
following petition that Stevenson composed for the use of his
household at Vailima, bears the stamp of its author.
"At Morning. The day returns and brings us the petty round of
irritating concerns and duties. Help us to play the man, help us to
perform them with laughter and kind faces, let cheerfulness abound
with industry. Give us to go blithely on our business all this day,
bring us to our resting beds weary and content and undishonoured,
and grant us in the end the gift of sleep."