ment in which one may readily acquiesce, if only on the ground of the general quality and scope of his work, and the stamp which it bears of an unusual and charming personality. His poetry, which is not, to be sure, of the best, and which often lacks his characteristic fitness and finish of phrase, has nevertheless found many approving readers; and his essays, even though, when critical, they show the want of the broadest sympathy and the soundest judgment, are delightfully graceful, fresh, and stimulating. But apart from all these qualities, Stevenson has another claim to consideration: he most fully represents, and most strongly influenced, the return to the spirit of romantic adventure in fiction. For a generation before his stories began to catch the attention of the public, romance, almost entirely supplanted since the waning of Scott's influence by the realistic novel of ordinary life, had for the most part been neglected by the more important writers and more critical readers alike. The enthusiastic welcome given to Treasure Island and the stories published by Stevenson during the next decade, if it revealed the natural reaction already going on in public taste, revealed also the sufficiency of the author's powers to stimulate and satisfy the new demand. Writing in accordance with a definite literary creed,1 in opposition to literary methods firmly established, he produced stories in strong contrast to the realism so long dominant. The life they deal with, though often real enough in its essence, is a life of unusual circumstance, filled with exciting action, mystery, and tragic menace. The characters are conceived in the spirit of the world they move in. Broadly delineated, without subtlety or minute analysis, they reveal such traits as are called forth by the circumstances that confront them— motives and passions easily perceived on a stage of action. They are far from being mere puppets moved by the author

1See A Gossip on Romance and A Humble Remonstrance.

through a tangle of events, or mere personifications of the qualities assigned to them; they impress with a sense of living personality.

Besides acting as a strong influence in restoring popularity and vitality to a neglected literary form, Stevenson is specially notable for another achievement. The great writers of romantic fiction who preceded him,-Scott, for example, had lacked perfection, or even superior finish of style. This superior finish, if not perfection, Stevenson had acquired. But style in his hands is something more than an added adornment which the work of his predecessors lacked. It is, on the whole, despite certain faults and affectations that must be admitted, a manner of expression so flexible and various, and so thoroughly at his command, that he can make it take on life and color in accordance with the spirit of what he is writing, can key the whole tone of it to the whole tone of his subject. It is in this sense that he merits the distinction, among writers in English, of having imparted the final grace to the storyteller's art.

II

AN INLAND VOYAGE AND TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY

An Inland Voyage, published in 1878, was Stevenson's first book; Travels with a Donkey, published the following year, his third. These volumes are, in a sense, representative of a considerable amount of the author's earlier work. Indeed, essays and descriptive records of his travels form the bulk of his writing from 1873, the date of Roads, until after the publication of Treasure Island. And though his final great achievement lies in the field of romance, yet the work of this other sort, if less important, is hardly less characteristic.

Neither book made much impression upon the public at the time of its appearance, though each won very

favorable comment from the reviews. The author's own criticism of the Voyage was that it "was not badly written, thin, mildly cheery and strained." Of both books he said, later in life, "that, though they contained nothing but fresh air and a certain style, they were good of their kind, and possessed a simplicity of treatment which afterwards he thought had passed out of his reach."

"Fresh air and a certain style"-the phrase is suggestive. Both books show a striking quality—likewise present in the tales and romances-the power of language to reproduce, not the form and color merely, but the very atmosphere of the scene. As one reads, it is as if the senses had been appealed to directly and not through the form of words. One feels the very genius of the place. One can scarcely read this passage, for example, without the sensation of being actually with Stevenson among the pines:

"The stars were clear, colored, and jewel-like, but not frosty. A faint silvery vapor stood for the Milky Way. All around me the black fir-points stood upright and stock-still. By the whiteness of the pack-saddle, I could see Modestine walking round and round at the length of her tether; I could hear her steadily munching at the sward; but there was not another sound, save the indescribable quiet talk of the runnel over the stones. I lay lazily smoking and studying the color of the sky, as we call the void of space, from where it showed a reddish gray behind the pines to where it showed a glossy blue-black between the stars. As if to be more like a pedlar, I wear a silver ring. This I could see faintly shining as I raised or lowered the cigarette; and at each whiff the inside of my hand was illuminated, and became for a second the highest light in the landscape.

"A faint wind, more like a moving coolness than a stream of air, passed down the glade from time to time; so that even in my great chamber the air was being renewed all night.''

And so, repeatedly, though the descriptions are not always so full or closely wrought, one gets the sense of being in the very place; one travels, not in the author's pages, but by his side.

1 Balfour's Life.

For the rest, one finds the charm of style as stylesometimes too self-conscious-which moves smoothly on from page to page in happy phrase and graceful sentence; kindly and humorous observation of character and manners; quiet meditations by the way, sometimes fresh and engaging, not always quite spontaneous, never too profound,—the musings of the philosophic vagabond.

III

CHRONOLOGY

1850 Stevenson born, November 13, at 8 Howard Place, Edinburgh.

1867 Enters the University of Edinburgh.

Abandons the study of engineering and begins to study law; contributes to the Edinburgh University Magazine.

1873 Publishes a paper entitled Roads in the Portfolio,— his first contribution to a regular periodical;

spends the winter on the Riviera to restore his health.

Passes his final examination in law and is admitted to the bar of Scotland; makes the first of a number of visits to the neighborhood of Fontainebleau. 1876 Stevenson and Sir Walter Simpson make the canoe trip in Belgium and France recorded in An Inland Voyage; Stevenson begins the essays afterwards collected in Virginibus Puerisque and Familiar Studies of Men and Books.

1877 Stevenson publishes his first story, A Lodging for the Night.

1878 Stevenson takes the walking tour through the Cévennes recorded in Travels with a Donkey; publishes his first book, An Inland Voyage.

1879 Publishes Travels with a Donkey; sails in June for America.

1880 Marries Fanny Van de Grift (Mrs. Osbourne) in San Francisco on May 19; returns in August to Scotland.

1880-1885 Stevenson and his wife living in various places in Scotland or on the Continent.

1882 Treasure Island; New Arabian Nights.

1885-1887 The Stevensons at Bournemouth. A Child's Garden of Verses.

1886 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; Kidnapped; The Merry Men.

1887 Thomas Stevenson dies; the Stevensons go to America and spend the winter in the Adirondacks.

Underwoods.

1888 In June the Stevensons set sail in the Casco for the Marquesas.

1888-1890 The South Sea cruises.

1889 The Master of Ballantrae.

1890 In November, the Stevensons begin their permanent residence at Vailima. Ballads.

1891-1893 The Samoan troubles.

1892

A Footnote to History.

1893 David Balfour (Catriona). 1894 Stevenson dies December 3.

IV

A BRIEF BIBLIOGRAPHY

The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson. Twenty-five volCharles Scribner's Sons.

umes.

The Thistle Edition. Twenty-four volumes. Sold only by subscription. By the same publishers. The standard American edition.