CHAPTER XXIV--MR HENLEY'S SPITEFUL PERVERSIONS

More unfortunate still, as disturbing and prejudicing a sane and true and
disinterested view of Stevenson's claims, was that article of his
erewhile "friend," Mr W. E. Henley, published on the appearance of the
_Memoir_ by Mr Graham Balfour, in the _Pall Mall Magazine_. It was well
that Mr Henley there acknowledged frankly that he wrote under a keen
sense of "grievance"--a most dangerous mood for the most soberly critical
and self-restrained of men to write in, and that most certainly Mr W. E.
Henley was not--and that he owned to having lost contact with, and
recognition of the R. L. Stevenson who went to America in 1887, as he
says, and never came back again. To do bare justice to Stevenson it is
clear that knowledge of that later Stevenson was essential--essential
whether it was calculated to deepen sympathy or the reverse. It goes
without saying that the Louis he knew and hobnobbed with, and nursed near
by the Old Bristo Port in Edinburgh could not be the same exactly as the
Louis of Samoa and later years--to suppose so, or to expect so, would
simply be to deny all room for growth and expansion. It is clear that
the W. E. Henley of those days was not the same as the W. E. Henley who
indited that article, and if growth and further insight are to be allowed
to Mr Henley and be pleaded as his justification _cum_ spite born of
sense of grievance for such an onslaught, then clearly some allowance in
the same direction must be made for Stevenson. One can hardly think that
in his case old affection and friendship had been so completely
submerged, under feelings of grievance and paltry pique, almost always
bred of grievances dwelt on and nursed, which it is especially bad for
men of genius to acknowledge, and to make a basis, as it were, for
clearer knowledge, insight, and judgment. In other cases the pleading
would simply amount to an immediate and complete arrest of judgment. Mr
Henley throughout writes as though whilst he had changed, and changed in
points most essential, his erewhile friend remained exactly where he was
as to literary position and product--the Louis who went away in 1887 and
never returned, had, as Mr W. E. Henley, most unfortunately for himself,
would imply, retained the mastery, and the Louis who never came back had
made no progress, had not added an inch, not to say a cubit, to his
statue, while Mr Henley remained _in statu quo_, and was s