r
stage necessities, or, if left, but hinder the action; and art of this
kind does not there suffice to conceal the lack of nature.

More clearly to bring out my meaning here and draw aid from comparative
illustration, let me take my old friend of many years, Charles Gibbon.
Gibbon was poor, very poor, in intellectual subtlety compared with
Stevenson; he had none of his sweet, quaint, original fancy; he was no
casuist; he was utterly void of power in the subdued humorous twinkle or
genial by-play in which Stevenson excelled. But he has more of dramatic
power, pure and simple, than Stevenson had--his novels--the best of
them--would far more easily yield themselves to the ordinary purposes of
the ordinary playwright. Along with conscientiousness, perception,
penetration, with the dramatist must go a certain indescribable common-
sense commonplaceness--if I may name it so--protection against vagary and
that over-refined egotism and self-confession which is inimical to the
drama and in which the Stevensonian type all too largely abounds for
successful dramatic production. Mr Henley perhaps put it too strongly
when he said that what was supremely of interest to R. L. Stevenson was
Stevenson himself; but he indicates the tendency, and that tendency is
inimical to strong, broad, effective and varied dramatic presentation.
Water cannot rise above its own level; nor can minds of this type go
freely out of themselves in a grandly healthy, unconscious, and
unaffected way, and this is the secret of the dramatic spirit, if it be
not, as Shelley said, the secret of morals, which Stevenson, when he
passed away, was but on the way to attain. As we shall see, he had risen
so far above it, subdued it, triumphed over it, that we really cannot
guess what he might have attained had but more years been given him. For
the last attainment of the loftiest and truest genius is precisely
this--to gain such insight of the real that all else becomes subsidiary.
True simplicity and the abiding relief and enduring power of true art
with all classes lies here and not elsewhere. Cleverness, refinement,
fancy, and invention, even sublety of intellect, are practically nowhere
in this sphere without this.

CHAPTER XIV--STEVENSON AS DRAMATIST

In opposition to Mr Pinero, therefore, I assert that Stevenson's defect
in spontaneous dramatic presentation is seen clearly in his novels as
well as in his plays proper.

In writing to my good frie