ward Eggleston finely sounded the personal note, and told of having
met Stevenson at a hotel in New York. Stevenson was ill when the
landlord came to Dr Eggleston and asked him if he should like to meet
him. Continuing, he said:

"He was flat on his back when I entered, but I think I never saw
anybody grow well in so short a time. It was a soul rather than a
body that lay there, ablaze with spiritual fire, good will shining
through everywhere. He did not pay me any compliment about my work,
and I didn't pay him any about his. We did not burn any of the
incense before each other which authors so often think it necessary to
do, but we were friends instantly. I am not given to speedy
intimacies, but I could not help my heart going out to him. It was a
wonderfully invested soul, no hedges or fences across his fields, no
concealment. He was a romanticist; I was--well, I don't know exactly
what. But he let me into the springs of his romanticism then and
there.

"'You go in your boat every day?' he asked. 'You sail? Oh! to write
a novel a man must take his life in his hands. He must not live in
the town.' And so he spoke, in his broad way, of course, according to
the enthusiasm of the moment.

"I can't sound any note of pathos here to-night. Some lives are so
brave and sweet and joyous and well-rounded, with such a completeness
about them that death does not leave imperfection. He never had the
air of sitting up with his own reputation. He let his books toss in
the waves of criticism and make their ports if they deserve to. He
had no claptrap, no great cause, none of the disease of pruriency
which came into fashion with Flaubert and Guy de Maupassant. He
simply told his story, with no condescension, taking the readers into
his heart and his confidence."

CHAPTER XX--EGOTISTIC ELEMENT AND ITS EFFECTS

From these sources now traced out by us--his youthfulness of spirit, his
mystical bias, and tendency to dream--symbolisms leading to disregard of
common feelings--flows too often the indeterminateness of Stevenson's
work, at the very points where for direct interest there should be
decision. In _The Master of Ballantrae_ this leads him to try to bring
the balances even as regards our interest in the two brothers, in so far
justifying from one point of view what Mr Zangwill said in the quotation
we have given, or, as Sir Lesli