598 Professor Walter Raleigh [May 17, 



walking doll will find suitors. The question must stand over until 

 some definite principles of criticism have been discovered to guide 

 us among those perilous passes. 



One character must never be passed over in an estimate of 

 Stevenson's work. The hero of his longest work is not David 

 Balfour, in whom the pawky Lowland lad, proud and precise, but 

 " a very pretty gentleman," is transfigured at times by traits that he 

 catches, as narrator of the story, from its author himself. But Alan 

 Breck Stewart is a greater creation, and a fine instance of that wider 

 morality that can seize by sympathy the soul of a wild Highland 

 clansman. "Impetuous, insolent, unquenchable," a condoner of 

 murder (for " them that havenae dipped their hands in any little 

 difficulty should be very mindful of the case of them that have "), a 

 confirmed gambler, as quarrelsome as a turkey-cock, and as vain and 

 sensitive as a child, Alan Breck is one of the most lovable characters 

 in all literature ; and his penetration — a great part of which he 

 learned, to take his own account of it, by driving cattle " through a 

 throng lowland country with the black soldiers at his tail " — blossoms 

 into the most delightful reflections upon men and things. 



The highest ambitions of a novelist are not easily attainable. 

 To combine incident, character, and romance in a uniform whole, to 

 alternate telling dramatic situation with effects of poetry and sug- 

 gestion, to breathe into the entire conception a profound wisdom, 

 construct it with absolute unity, and express it in perfect style — this 

 thing has never yet been done. A great part of Stevenson's subtle 

 wisdom of life finds its readiest outlet in his essays. In these, 

 whatever their occasion, he shows himself the clearest-eyed critic of 

 human life, never the dupe of the phrases and pretences, the theories 

 and conventions, that distort the vision of most writers and thinkers. 

 He has an unerring instinct for realities, and brushes aside all else 

 with rapid grace. In his lately published ' Amateur Emigrant ' he 

 describes one of his fellow-passengers to America : — 



" In truth it was not whisky that had ruined him ; he was ruined 

 long before for all good human purposes but conversation. His 

 eyes were sealed by a cheap school-book materialism. He could see 

 nothing in the world but money and steam engines. He did not 

 know what you meant by the word happiness. He had forgotten 

 the simple emotions of childhood, and perhaps never encountered the 

 delights of youth. He believed in production, that useful figment 

 of economy, as if it had been real, like laughter; and production, 

 without prejudice to liquor, was his god and guide." 



This sense of the realities of the world — -laughter, happiness, the 

 simple emotions of childhood, and others — makes Stevenson an 

 admirable critic of those social pretences that ape the native qualities 

 of the heart. The criticism on organised philanthropy contained in 

 the essay on ' Beggars ' is not exhaustive, it is expressed paradoxically, 

 but is it untrue ? — 



" We should wipe two words from our vocabulary. Gratitude and 





