Stevenson was a delightful knight of the 

 quill who never cheapened his work in 

 order to increase the output ; but he 

 burned himself up as a candle by which to 

 see his financial way. We feel, in reading 

 his books, what literature he could have 

 made had he been quite free to write just 

 what and how he pleased, with not even 

 the tail of an eye on a guinea. 



Ah, the good old days when the artist 

 had his rich patron, when the poet had his 

 pension ! We may well sigh back at them, 

 as at the golden age of our tribe. Then 

 it was that the writer could have his own 

 way, his own time, could play with a sub- 

 ject as a cat with a mouse, or spring upon 

 it and devour it bodily — always obeying 

 the instinct of his genius. Really, this is 

 the return to nature — namely, to do what 

 one's genius dictates, uninfluenced by the 

 fashion of one's time, unmindful of the 

 quotations from the literary market reports. 



A Scott wringing his giant mind dry and 

 dissolving his great physique in order to 

 cover so much paper with so much litera- 

 ture at so much the page ; the vision of Ste- 

 170 



