der for Pulvis et Umbra--the
same forces are at work in each case. It is Chicago making culture hum.

And what kind of a man was Stevenson? Whatever may be said about his
imitativeness, his good spirits were real. They are at the bottom of his
success, the strong note in his work. They account for all that is
paradoxical in his effect. He often displays a sentimentalism which has
not the ring of reality. And yet we do not reproach him. He has by
stating his artistic doctrines in their frankest form revealed the
scepticism inherent in them. And yet we know that he was not a sceptic;
on the contrary, we like him, and he was regarded by his friends as
little lower than the angels.

Why is it that we refuse to judge him by his own utterances? The reason
is that all of his writing is playful, and we know it. The instinct at
the bottom of all mimicry is self-concealment. Hence the illusive and
questionable personality of Stevenson. Hence our blind struggle to bind
this Proteus who turns into bright fire and then into running water
under our hands. The truth is that as a literary force, there was no
such man as Stevenson; and after we have racked our brains to find out
the mechanism which has been vanquishing the chess players of Europe,
there emerges out of the Box of Maelzel a pale boy.

But the courage of this boy, the heroism of his life, illumine all his
works with a personal interest. The last ten years of his life present a
long battle with death.

We read of his illnesses, his spirit; we hear how he never gave up, but
continued his works by dictation and in dumb show when he was too weak
to hold the pen, too weak to speak. This courage and the lovable nature
of Stevenson won the world's heart. He was regarded with a peculiar
tenderness such as is usually given only to the young. Honor, and
admiration mingled with affection followed him to his grave. Whatever
his artistic doctrines, he revealed his spiritual nature in his work. It
was this nature which made him thus beloved.

End of Project Gutenberg's Emerson and Other Essays, by John Jay Chapman

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