My Contemporaries In Fiction | Page 8

but energy. No male writer surpasses
him in the knowledge of feminine human nature. There is no
love-making in literature to beat the story of the courtship of Julia
Dodd and Alfred Hardy in 'Hard Cash.' In mere descriptive power he
ranks with the giants. Witness the mill on fire in 'The Cloister and the
Hearth'; the lark in exile in 'Never too Late to Mend'; the boat-race in
'Hard Cash'; the scene of Kate Peyton at the firelit window, and Griffith
in the snow, in 'Griffith Gaunt.' There are a thousand bursts of laughter
in his pages, not mere sniggers, but lung-shaking laughters, and the
man who can go by any one of a hundred pathetic passages without
tears is a man to be pitied. Let it be admitted that at times he wrenches
his English rather fiercely, and yet let it be said that for delicacy,
strength, sincerity, clarity, and all great graces of style, he is side by
side with the noblest of our prose writers. Can it be that a few scattered
drops of vulgarity in emphasis dim such a fire as this? Does so small a
dead fly taint so big a pot of ointment? I will not be foolish enough to
dogmatise on such a point, and yet I can find no other reasons than
those I have already given why a master-craftsman should not hold a
master-craftsman's place. Solomon has told us what 'a little folly' can
do for him who is in reputation for wisdom.' The great mass of the
public can always tell what pleases it, but it cannot always tell why it is
pleased.
And the man who writes for wide and lasting fame has to depend, not
upon the verdict of the expert and the cultured, but on the love of those
who only know they love, and who have no power to give the critical
why and wherefore. The public--'the stupid and ignorant pig of a
public,' as 'Pococurante' called it years ago--is always being abused,
and yet it is only the public which, in the end, can tell us if we have
done well or ill. We have all to consent to be measured by it, and, in the
long run, it estimates our stature with a perfect accuracy.
I hope I may not be thought impertinent in intruding here a
reminiscence of Reade which seems characteristic of his sweeter side.
In reading over these pages for the press I have been moved to a

mournful and tender remembrance of the only one of the three great
Vanished Masters whom it was my happy chance to meet in the flesh. I
dedicated to him the second novel which left my pen--the third to reach
the public--and in sending him the volumes on the day of issue I wrote
what I remember as a rather boyish letter, in which I was at no pains to
disguise my admiration for his genius. That admiration was not then
tempered by the considerations which are expressed above, for they
touched me only after many years of practice in the art he adorned so
richly. He answered with a gentle and sad courtesy, and concluded with
these words: 'It is no discredit in a young man to esteem a senior
beyond his merits.' I have always thought that very graceful and
felicitous, and now that I am myself grown to be a senior I am more
persuaded of its charm than ever.

III.--ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
In the scheme of this series, as originally-announced, Thackeray's work
should have formed the subject of the third chapter. But, on reflection, I
have decided that, considering my present purpose, it would be little
more than a useless self-indulgence to do what I at first intended. There
is no sort of dispute about Thackeray. There is no need for any revision
of the general opinion concerning him. It would be to me, personally, a
delightful thing to write such an appreciation as I had in mind, but this
is not the place for it.
Let us pass, then, at once to the consideration of the incomplete and
arrested labours of the charming and accomplished workman whose
loss all lovers of English literature are still lamenting.
I have special and private reasons for thinking warmly of Robert Louis
Stevenson, the man; and these reasons seem to give me some added
warrant for an attempt to do justice to Robert Louis Stevenson, the
writer. With the solitary exception of the unfortunate cancelled letters
from Samoa, which were written whilst he was in ill-health, and
suffered a complete momentary eclipse of style, he has scarcely
published a line which may not afford the most captious reader pleasure.

With that sole exception he was always an artist in his work, and
always