n mere literary charm in what he says here.
In the matter of childhood we must study him with respect. He is an
authority.

The slight but serious studies in biography--alas! too few--which
Stevenson published, ought also to be mentioned, because their merit is
apt to be overlooked by the admirers of his more ambitious works. His
understanding of two such opposite types of men as Burns and Thoreau is
notable, and no less notable are the courage, truth, and penetration
with which he dealt with them. His essay on Burns is the most
comprehensible word ever said of Burns. It makes us love Burns less,
but understand him more.

The problems suggested by Stevenson are more important than his work
itself. We have in him that rare combination,--a man whose theories and
whose practice are of a piece. His doctrines are the mere description of
his own state of mind while at work.

The quality which every one will agree in conceding to Stevenson is
lightness of touch. This quality is a result of his extreme lucidity,
not only of thought, but of intention. We know what he means, and we are
sure that we grasp his whole meaning at the first reading. Whether he be
writing a tale of travel or humorous essay, a novel of adventure, a
story of horror, a morality, or a fable; in whatever key he plays,--and
he seems to have taken delight in showing mastery in many,--the reader
feels safe in his hands, and knows that no false note will be struck.
His work makes no demands upon the attention. It is food so thoroughly
peptonized that it is digested as soon as swallowed and leaves us
exhilarated rather than fed.

Writing was to him an art, and almost everything that he has written has
a little the air of being a _tour de force_. Stevenson's books and
essays were generally brilliant imitations of established things, done
somewhat in the spirit of an expert in billiards. In short, Stevenson is
the most extraordinary mimic that has ever appeared in literature.

That is the reason why he has been so much praised for his style. When
we say of a new thing that it "has style," we mean that it is done as we
have seen things done before. Bunyan, De Foe, or Charles Lamb were to
their contemporaries men without style. The English, to this day,
complain of Emerson that he has no style.

If a man writes as he talks, he will be thought to have no style, until
people get used to him, for literature means _what has been written_. As
soon as a writer is es