tablished, his manner of writing is adopted by the
literary conscience of the times, and you may follow him and still have
"style." You may to-day imitate George Meredith, and people, without
knowing exactly why they do it, will concede you "style." Style means
tradition.

When Stevenson, writing from Samoa in the agony of his South Seas (a
book he could not write because he had no paradigm and original to copy
from), says that he longs for a "moment of style," he means that he
wishes there would come floating through his head a memory of some other
man's way of writing to which he could modulate his sentences.

It is no secret that Stevenson in early life spent much time in
imitating the styles of various authors, for he has himself described
the manner in which he went to work to fit himself for his career as a
writer. His boyish ambition led him to employ perfectly phenomenal
diligence in cultivating a perfectly phenomenal talent for imitation.

There was probably no fault in Stevenson's theory as to how a man should
learn to write, and as to the discipline he must undergo. Almost all the
greatest artists have shown, in their early work, traces of their early
masters. These they outgrow. "For as this temple waxes, the inward
service of the mind and soul grows wide withal;" and an author's own
style breaks through the coverings of his education, as a hyacinth
breaks from the bulb. It is noticeable, too, that the early and
imitative work of great men generally belongs to a particular school to
which their maturity bears a logical relation. They do not cruise about
in search of a style or vehicle, trying all and picking up hints here
and there, but they fall incidentally and genuinely under influences
which move them and afterwards qualify their original work.

With Stevenson it was different; for he went in search of a style as
Coelebs in search of a wife. He was an eclectic by nature. He became a
remarkable, if not a unique phenomenon,--for he never grew up. Whether
or not there was some obscure connection between his bodily troubles and
the arrest of his intellectual development, it is certain that Stevenson
remained a boy till the day of his death.

The boy was the creature in the universe whom Stevenson best understood.
Let us remember how a boy feels about art, and why he feels so. The
intellect is developed in the child with such astonishing rapidity that
long before physical maturity its head is filled with