596 Professor Walter Raleigh [May 17, 



china — the morality without which life would be impossible ; the 

 relations, namely, of human beings to each other, the feelings, 

 habits, and thoughts that are the web of society. For the apprecia- 

 tion of morality in this wider sense high gifts of imagination are 

 necessary. Shakespeare could never have drawn Macbeth, and thereby 

 made apparent the awfulness of murder, without some sympathy for 

 the murderer — the sympathy of intelligence. These gifts of imagina- 

 tion and sympathy belong to Stevenson in a very high degree ; in all 

 his romances there are gleams from time to time of wise and subtle 

 reflection upon life, from the eternal side of things, which shine the 

 more luminously that they spring from the events and situations with 

 no suspicion of homily. In ' The Black Arrow,' Dick Shelton begs 

 from the Duke of Gloucester the life of the old shipmaster Arblaster, 

 whose ship he had taken and accidentally wrecked earlier in the 

 story. The Duke of Gloucester, who, in his own words, "loves not 

 mercy nor mercy -mongers," yields the favour reluctantly. Then 

 Dick turns to Arblaster. 



" ' Come,' said Dick, ' a life is a life, old shrew, and it is more 

 than ships or liquor. Say you forgive me, for if your life is worth 

 nothing to you, it hath cost me the beginnings of my fortune. Come, 

 I have paid for it dearly ; be not so churlish.' 



" * An' I had my ship,' said Arblaster, ' I would 'a' been forth and 

 safe on the hi^h seas — I and my man Tom. But ye took my ship, 

 gossip, and I'm a beggar ; and for my man Tom, a knave fellow in 

 russet shot him down. ' Murrain,' quoth he, and spake never again. 

 'Murrain' was the last of his words, and the poor spirit of him 

 passed. 'A will never sail no more, will my Tom.' 



" Dick was seized with unavailing penitence and pity ; he sought 

 to take the skipper's hand, but Arblaster avoided his touch. 



" ' Nay,' said he, ' let be. Y' have played the devil with me, and 

 let that content you.' 



" The words died in Richard's throat. He saw, through tears, 

 the poor old man, bemused with liquor and sorrow, go shambling 

 away, with bowed head, across the snow, and the unnoticed dog 

 whimpering at his heels; and for the first time began to understand 

 the desperate game that we play in life, and how a thing once done 

 is not to be changed or remedied by any penitence." 



A similar wisdom that goes to the heart of things is found on the 

 lips of the spiritual visitant in ' Markheim.' 



" ' Murder is to me no special category,' replied the other. * All 

 sins are murder, even as all life is war. I behold your race, like 

 starving mariners on a raft, plucking crusts out of the hands of 

 famine, and feeding on each other's lives. I follow sins beyond the 

 moment of their acting ; I find in all that the last consequence is 

 death ; and to my eyes the pretty maid, who thwarts her mother with 

 such taking graces on a question of a ball, drips no less visibly with 

 human gore than such a murderer as yourself.' " 



The wide outlook on humanity that expresses itself in passages 



