of an
Alexandrine age. After art has once learnt to draw its inspiration
directly from life and has produced some masterpieces, then imitations
begin to creep in. That Stevenson's doctrines tend to produce imitative
work is obvious. If the artist is a fisher of men, then we must examine
the works of those who have known how to bait their hooks: in
fiction,--De Foe, Fielding, Walter Scott, Dumas, Balzac.

To a study of these men, Stevenson had, as we have seen, devoted the
most plastic years of his life. The style and even the mannerisms of
each of them, he had trained himself to reproduce. One can almost write
their names across his pages and assign each as a presiding genius over
a share of his work. Not that Stevenson purloined or adopted in a mean
spirit, and out of vanity. His enthusiasm was at the bottom of all he
did. He was well read in the belles lettres of England and the
romanticists of France. These books were his bible. He was steeped in
the stage-land and cloud-land of sentimental literature. From time to
time, he emerged, trailing clouds of glory and showering sparkles from
his hands.

A close inspection shows his clouds and sparkles to be stage properties;
but Stevenson did not know it. The public not only does not know it, but
does not care whether it be so or not. The doughty old novel readers who
knew their Scott and Ainsworth and Wilkie Collins and Charles Reade,
their Dumas and their Cooper, were the very people whose hearts were
warmed by Stevenson. If you cross-question one of these, he will admit
that Stevenson is after all a revival, an echo, an after-glow of the
romantic movement, and that he brought nothing new. He will scout any
comparison between Stevenson and his old favorites, but he is ready
enough to take Stevenson for what he is worth. The most casual reader
recognizes a whole department of Stevenson's work as competing in a
general way with Walter Scott.

Kidnapped is a romantic fragment whose original is to be found in the
Scotch scenes of the Waverley Novels. An incident near the beginning of
it, the curse of Jennet Clouston upon the House of Shaws, is transferred
from Guy Mannering almost literally. But the curse of Meg Merrilies in
Guy Mannering--which is one of the most surprising and powerful scenes
Scott ever wrote--is an organic part of the story, whereas the
transcript is a thing stuck in for effect, and the curse is put in the
mouth of an old woman whose connection with the