Another time, he may desert the paths of Kingston and
Ballantyne for those of Sir Walter Scott; but literature presents few
stronger contrasts than between any scene of _Waverley_ or _Redgauntlet_
and any scene of the _Master of Ballantrae_ or _Catriona_, whether in
their strength or weakness: and it is the most loyal lovers of the older
master who take the greatest pleasure in reading the work of the
younger, so much less opulently gifted as is probable--though we must
remember that Stevenson died at the age when Scott wrote _Waverley_--so
infinitely more careful of his gift. Stevenson may even blow upon the
pipe of Burns and yet his tune will be no echo, but one which utters the
heart and mind of a Scots maker who has his own outlook on life, his own
special and profitable vein of smiling or satirical contemplation.

"Not by reason, then, of 'externality,' for sure, nor yet of
imitativeness, will this writer lose his hold on the attention and
regard of his countrymen. The debate, before his place in literature is
settled, must rather turn on other points: as whether the genial
essayist and egoist or the romantic inventor and narrator was the
stronger in him--whether the Montaigne and Pepys elements prevailed in
his literary composition or the Scott and Dumas elements--a question
indeed which among those who care for him most has always been at issue.
Or again, what degree of true inspiring and illuminating power belongs
to the gospel, or gospels, airily encouraging or gravely didactic, which
are set forth in the essays with so captivating a grace? Or whether in
romance and tale he had a power of inventing and constructing a whole
fable comparable to his admitted power of conceiving and presenting
single scenes and situations in a manner which stamps them indelibly on
the reader's mind? And whether his figures are sustained continuously by
the true spontaneous breath of creation, or are but transitorily
animated at happy moments by flashes of spiritual and dramatic insight,
aided by the conscious devices of his singularly adroit and spirited
art? These are questions which no criticism but that of time can solve.
To contend, as some do, that strong creative impulse and so keen an
artistic self-consciousness as Stevenson's was cannot exist together, is
quite idle. The truth, of course, is that the deep-seated energies of
imaginative creation are found sometimes in combination, and sometimes
not in combination, with an art