584 Professor Walter Raleigh [May 17, 



same garden that the Rev. Simon Holies suddenly, to his own surprise, 

 became a thief. A monotony of bad building is no doubt a bad thing, 

 but it cannot paralyse the activities or frustrate the agonies of the 

 mind of man. 



To a man with Stevenson's live and searching imagination, 

 every work of human hands became vocal with possible associations. 

 Buildings positively chattered to him ; the little inn at Queensferry, 

 which even for Scott had meant only mutton and currant jelly, with 

 cranberries " vera weel preserved," gave him the cardinal incident 

 of ' Kidnapped.' How should the world ever seem dull or sordid to 

 one whom a railway station would take into its confidence, to whom 

 the very flagstones of the pavement told their story ; in whose mind, 

 " the effect of night, of any flowing water, of lighted cities, of the 

 peep of day, of ships, of the open ocean," called up " an army of 

 anonymous desires and pleasures " ? To have the " golden-tongued 

 Romance with serene lute" for a mistress and familiar is to be 

 fortified against the assaults of tedium. 



His attitude towards the surprising and momentous gift of life 

 was one prolonged passion of praise and joy. There is none of his 

 books that reads like the meditations of an invalid. He has the 

 readiest sympathy for all exhibitions of impulsive energy ; his heart 

 goes out to a sailor, and leaps into ecstasy over a generous adven- 

 turer or buccaneer. Of one of his earlier books he says : " From the 

 negative point of view I flatter myself this volume has a certain 

 stamp. Although it runs to considerably upwards of two hundred 

 pages, it contains not a single reference to the imbecility of God's 

 universe, nor so much as a single hint that I could have made a better 

 one myself." And this was an omission that he never remedied in 

 his later works. Indeed, his zest in life, whether lived in the back 

 gardens of a town or on the high seas, was so great that it seems 

 probable the writer would have been lost had the man been dowered 

 with better health. 



" Whereas ray birth and spirit rather took 

 The way that takes the town, 

 Thou didst betray me to a ling'ring book, 

 And wrap me in a gown," 



says George Herbert, who, in his earlier ambitions, would fain have 

 ruffled it with the best at the court of King James. But from 

 Stevenson, although not only the town, but oceans and continents, 

 beckoned him to deeds, no such wail escaped. His indomitable 

 cheerfulness was never embarked in the cock-boat of his own pros- 

 perity. A high and simple courage shines through all his writings. 

 It is supposed to be a normal human feeling for those who are hale 

 to sympathise with others who are in pain. Stevenson reversed the 

 position, and there is no braver spectacle in literature than to see 

 him not asking others to lower their voices in his sick-room, but 

 raising his own voice that he may make them feel at ease and 



