BOSTON EVENING TRANSCRIPT, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1925 



St 



evenson 



Not on His Pedestal 



A Clarification of the Personality of 

 a Writer Who Has Suffered 

 Greatly at the Hands 

 0 f Injudicious 

 Biographers 



By Edwin Francis Edgett 



Is there anything now a.nd strange to 

 write about Stevenson? One after 

 another come lorth the biographers, 

 the commentators and the expound- 

 era, and as we open each volume this 

 question always conies to mind. And al- 

 ways the answer is the same and positive. 

 Tliere is somthing new to say about Stev- 

 enson, both of the man and of the writer. 

 That this is so is diie not to Stevenson him- 

 self, althoug-h h:s many sidedness and the 

 romantic phases of his life undoubtedly 

 contribute to it. Those responsible in 

 targe measure are his wnfe, certain mem- 

 bers of his family and certain friends who 

 have set him upon a pedestal as an idol 

 to bo worsiippcd. and who have tolerated 

 the saying oi nothing about him that would j 

 represent him as a wholly human and fal- 

 lible man. 



The dispersal among considerable other 

 material of some Stevenson manuscript 

 poems ten years ago concentrated Mr. 

 Hellman's mind upon the subject of this 

 idealized Stevenson. Tliey had been put 

 upon the market by Mrs. Stevenson's daugh- 

 ter not long after that lady's death, and 

 thoy had been tirought to New York from 

 Samoa by way of California, Access to 

 them by Mr. Hellnian revealed a consider- 

 able number of Stevenson'.? poems which 

 dieclosed facts about his early life hither- 

 to undescrlt;e3 by any biogrrapher and left 

 practically unnoted by any editor. Their 

 principal feature consisted of over one I 

 hundred pages of autobiographical verse, 

 with other rich material in letter, essay 

 and fiction form, some of which has al- 

 ready been made available through the 

 Bibliophile Society of Boston. 



It is useless to say that all this is un- 

 important, or not contributory to the eluci- 

 dation of Stevenson's personality and his 

 work as a wriJer. To say that it contains 

 secrets that should not be revealed is 

 absurd. Other writers have had their lives 

 and thoughts laid bare before the public 

 after their death. Therefore, why should 

 Stevenson be an exception? As a matter 

 of fact, the writings which made him ! 

 fflmoue do not disclose the whole man. 

 Something of him had to be supcressed, 

 for he wrote for the fireside and the home, 

 and there was a commercial reason, if 

 none other, why nothing unfit for the 

 minds of babes and sucitlings should b^ 

 published. The Stevenson menage needed 

 nioney for the exigencies of its daily exis- 

 tence. There was an invalid to care tor, 

 and however much Stevenson mav have 

 rebelled, his wife saw to it that nothing 

 of his should appear in print that would 

 Injure the sanctity of his reputation. 



The case is succinctly stated in Mr. 

 Hellman's "prefatory and egotistic" open- 

 ing chapter. "No student of Stevenson's 

 lite, no critic of his writings, has failed to 

 observe that he was a delightful egoist and 

 that the grace and tact with which he, so 

 to speak, handled his egoism accoiint for 

 the appeal of much of his work. An ever- 

 interesting subject to Robert Louis Steven- 

 son was that R. U. S. whose qualities and 

 whoee faults were so well known to this 

 author o£ self-revelatory essays, letters, 

 books of travel and romance. His winning 

 personality is writ large on his pages. 

 Yet no biographer has gone with fullness 

 of reseE^rch Into those spheres of Steven- 

 i creative work where the man him- 

 self Is most intimately to be approached 

 In the formative period of youth. For 

 the emotional release of the young lover, 

 for the self-clarlflcation of the young in- 

 tellectualist, and for the technical develop- 

 ment of the young craftsman, were the 

 score upon score of poems that came from 

 Stevenson's pen— mainly during the period 

 of youth — poeme showing- the influence of 

 Heine, Burns, Ferguson, Wordswonh and 

 Ooethe. That Mrs. Stevenson should have 

 suppressed the early poetry of her hus- 

 band—should have, calmly aware of her 

 misstatement of fact, recorded that the 

 writing of verse was merely a pastime 

 an avocation of Stevenson's— has placed 

 the students of her husband's life under a 

 disadvantage which until recently bade 

 fair to be perpetual." Fortunate Indeed Is 

 it that Mrs. Stevenson did not follow in the 

 footsteps of Lady Burton and destroy some. 

 oC her husband's most valuable work. 



The dispute over Graham Balfour's biog- 

 raphy of Stevenson, and Sir Sidney Co - 

 vin's editorial work on his letters st.ll 



rages, and doubtless will continue to rase 

 as long as interest in Stevenson contmues. 

 Mr. Hellman contends, and Justly, that in 

 his two volumes Mr. Colvin assumed a dual 

 irole, that as author of the introductory 

 note he said many true things known to 

 those who knew them, and that as selector 

 of the letters he omitted m^ny important 

 views of such essential qualities Steven- 

 son as the intensity of his friendships, his 

 Riibieotion to the influence of women, in 

 particular to two who played * vital part 

 in his early life, the individualism of h s 

 moral code, and the quixotic element In 

 his chivalry. There were, he finds, a few 

 flasht of courage, but finally he gave in 

 to what he considered the better value of 

 silence and discretion. 



Says Mr. Hellman: "Phrases concern- 

 ing the haunts of artists at Fontamebleau 

 and in Paris, and concerning the cir- 

 cumstances in which Stevanson fol- 

 lowed Mrs. Osbourne ' to California, 

 were not only omitted but were sub- 

 stituted by a wording that Is almes. 

 verbatim the issue of Mr. Osbourne s 

 tien- Mr Colvin had written that his own 

 way of handling so delicate an episode was 

 the best and safest way and that to depart 

 from the facts which he had in such well- 

 chosen words so carefully covered was to 

 leave inexplicable the adventure of ihose 

 davs when Stevenson was rtarvinsf in Cali- 

 fornia. Tielding on this point he has, by 

 his own admission, been unjust to Steven- 

 son and to the world of letters. Whate 

 extenuation there may he (and there may 

 "em to be extenuation, for Mr. Colvin was 

 in a position where he had either to give 



up the work or to accept orders), the grav- 

 ity of this act becomes intensified by the 

 quarter-century of silence that has suc- 

 ceeded it. and that has continued even af- 

 ter the death of Mrs. Stevenson who. ac- 

 cording to Mr. Colvin, had been willing 

 that the truth .should be known." 



It . will be seen from all this that Mr. 

 Hellman's book is extremely contentious, 

 hut no discussion of Stevr.n<3on's whole life 

 could be otherwise. His own story is as 

 romantic as any story he ever wrote, and 

 the whole truth will not make anv hiorrranhv 

 of him or any analysis of his char.ioter 

 less sympathetic. In fact, it will give an 

 extended, if not a new understanding of 

 the man and alsii rf h's wo-k. Mr. Hell- 

 man closes on a note of justifiably extreme 

 appreciation. "'Whatever his own disap- 

 "ointment.s." he i-- vs. "pe an author, he 

 fought the brave fight He sought to ad- 

 here to the ideals of the artist and to the 

 code of Kction of a man nf honor. In^ 

 contradistinction to those who are silent 

 for their own sakei, he was silent for the 

 sake of others. The child who had been 

 made fun of by other children : the youth 



who was not generally liked in his univer- 

 sitv days; the young man whoss profllgaxjy 

 .nd whose bitter reaction against dogmatic., 

 eligion had made him unpopular to the 

 verge of exclusion in toe staid society of 

 Edinburgh, had. by virtue of the finer quali- 

 ties of his mind and of his nature, devel- 

 oped into a man who came to be regarded 

 with affection and admiration, the world 

 over And rightly so. Kindness and cour- 

 age and the desire to give pleasure througb 

 ne's art are the main motifs in Steven- 

 Dn's life They constituted the philosophy 

 rhich Stevenson consciously evolved lor 

 himself, and, with rare lapses, consistently 

 acted upon during the difficult years of m 

 and hara.ised manhood. Tl-.e shadows on his 

 character, all his human weaknesses, are 

 lost in the larger light of his achievement 

 me of the torch-bearers who hand down 

 to otiiers the inspiration of the chivalrous 

 spirit." 



Of course, no extended discussion of Ste- 

 venson into which enters the controversial 

 element would be complete without refer- 

 ences to the friendship of. the separation 

 from and the famous article contributed by 

 W. K. Henley to the Pal! Mall Magazine 

 in 1801. Echoes of the sensation It cre- 

 ated have scarcely died away, but, many 

 who lost their heads over It and -who 

 sprang heroically and somewhat foolishly 

 to what they thought was Stevenson's de- 

 fense, long ago recovered their sanity. 

 What lienley wrote, in part, was this; 

 "For me there were two Stevensons ; the 

 Stevenson who went to America in '87 ; and 

 the Stevenson who never came back. Th« 

 first I knew, and loved ; the other I lost 

 touch with, and, though I admired him. did 

 not rreatly esteem. My relation to hlra 

 was that of a man with a grievance; and 

 for that reason, perhaps— that reason and 

 others— I am by no means disposed to take 

 all Mr. Balfour says for gospel, nor will- 

 ing to forsec. on the showing of what is 

 after all an official statement, the knowl- 

 edge gained in an absolute intimacy o( 

 give-and-take which lasted for thirteen 

 years, and includes so many of the circum- 

 stances of those thirteen years that, as I 



