e wants
with an entire contempt of consequences is a scoundrel, and the man
who emerges from such an enterprise unabashed and cheerful, whatever
his conduct may have been, and justifies himself on the principles of
the Shorter Catechism, is a hypocrite to boot. This is not the report
we have of Robert Louis Stevenson from most of those who knew him. It
is a most grave and dreadful accusation, and it is not minimised by Mr
Henley's acknowledgment that Stevenson was a good fellow. We all know
the air of false candour which lends a disputant so much advantage in
debate. In Victor Hugo's tremendous indictment of Napoleon le Petit
we remember the telling allowance for fine horsemanship. It spreads
an air of impartiality over the most mordant of Hugo's pages. It is
meant to do that. An insignificant praise is meant to show how a
whole Niagara of blame is poured on the victim of invective in all
sincerity, and even with a touch of reluctance.

"Mr Henley, despite his absurdities of ''Tis' and 'it were,' is a
fairly competent literary craftsman, and he is quite gifted enough to
make a plain man's plain meaning an evident thing if he chose to do
it. But if for the friend for whom 'first and last he did share' he
can only show us the figure of one 'who was at bottom an excellent
fellow,' and who had 'an entire contempt' for the consequences of his
own acts, he presents a picture which can only purposely be obscured.
. . .

"All I know of Robert Louis Stevenson I have learned from his books,
and from one unexpected impromptu letter which he wrote to me years
ago in friendly recognition of my own work. I add the testimonies of
friends who may have been of less actual service to him than Mr
Henley, but who surely loved him better and more lastingly. These do
not represent him as the victim of an overweening personal vanity, nor
as a person reckless of the consequences of his own acts, nor as a
Pecksniff who consoled himself for moral failure out of the Shorter
Catechism. The books and the friends amongst them show me an erratic
yet lovable personality, a man of devotion and courage, a loyal,
charming, and rather irresponsible person whose very slight faults
were counter-balanced many times over by very solid virtues. . . .

"To put the thing flatly, it is not a heroism to cling to mere
existence. The basest of us