of love as well as of
fraternal hatred. The "Master" is studied, is polished _ad unguem_; it
is a whole in itself, it is a remarkably daring attempt to write the
tragedy, as, in "Waverley," Scott wrote the romance, of Scotland about
the time of the Forty-Five. With such a predecessor and rival, Mr.
Stevenson wisely leaves the pomps and battles of the Forty-Five, its
chivalry and gallantry, alone. He shows us the seamy side: the
intrigues, domestic and political; the needy Irish adventurer with the
Prince, a person whom Scott had not studied. The book, if completely
successful, would be Mr. Stevenson's "Bride of Lammermoor." To be frank,
I do not think it completely successful--a victory all along the line.
The obvious weak point is Secundra Dass, that Indian of unknown
nationality; for surely his name marks him as no Hindoo. The Master
could not have brought him, shivering like Jos Sedley's black servant, to
Scotland. As in America, this alien would have found it "too dam cold."
My power of belief (which verges on credulity) is staggered by the
ghastly attempt to reanimate the buried Master. Here, at least to my
taste, the freakish changeling has got the better of Mr. Stevenson, and
has brought in an element out of keeping with the steady lurid tragedy of
fraternal hatred. For all the rest, it were a hard judge that had
anything but praise. The brilliant blackguardism of the Master; his
touch of sentiment as he leaves Durisdeer for the last time, with a sad
old song on his lips; his fascination; his ruthlessness; his irony;--all
are perfect. It is not very easy to understand the Chevalier Bourke,
that Barry Lyndon, with no head and with a good heart, that creature of a
bewildered kindly conscience; but it is easy to like him. How admirable
is his undeflected belief in and affection for the Master! How excellent
and how Irish he is, when he buffoons himself out of his perils with the
pirates! The scenes are brilliant and living, as when the Master throws
the guinea through the Hall window, or as in the darkling duel in the
garden. It needed an austere artistic conscience to make Henry, the
younger brother, so unlovable with all his excellence, and to keep the
lady so true, yet so much in shadow. This is the best woman among Mr.
Stevenson's few women; but even she is almost always reserved, veiled as
it were.

The old Lord, again, is a portrait as lifelike as Scott could have drawn,
and more delicately to