MORE unfortunate still, as disturbing and prejudicing a sane and true and disinterested view of Stevenson's claims, was that article of his erewhile "friend," Mr W.E.Henley, published on the appearance of the MEMOIR by Mr Graham Balfour, in the PALL MALL MAGAZINE.It was well that Mr Henley there acknowledged frankly that he wrote under a keen sense of "grievance" - a most dangerous mood for the most soberly critical and self-restrained of men to write in, and that most certainly Mr W.E.Henley was not - and that he owned to having lost contact with, and recognition of the R.L.Stevenson who went to America in 1887, as he says, and never came back again.To do bare justice to Stevenson it is clear that knowledge of that later Stevenson was essential - essential whether it was calculated to deepen sympathy or the reverse.It goes without saying that the Louis he knew and hobnobbed with, and nursed near by the Old Bristo Port in Edinburgh could not be the same exactly as the Louis of Samoa and later years - to suppose so, or to expect so, would simply be to deny all room for growth and expansion.It is clear that the W.E.Henley of those days was not the same as the W.E.Henley who indited that article, and if growth and further insight are to be allowed to Mr Henley and be pleaded as his justification CUM spite born of sense of grievance for such an onslaught, then clearly some allowance in the same direction must be made for Stevenson.One can hardly think that in his case old affection and friendship had been so completely submerged, under feelings of grievance and paltry pique, almost always bred of grievances dwelt on and nursed, which it is especially bad for men of genius to acknowledge, and to make a basis, as it were, for clearer knowledge, insight, and judgment.
In other cases the pleading would simply amount to an immediate and complete arrest of judgment.Mr Henley throughout writes as though whilst he had changed, and changed in points most essential, his erewhile friend remained exactly where he was as to literary position and product - the Louis who went away in 1887 and never returned, had, as Mr W.E.Henley, most unfortunately for himself, would imply, retained the mastery, and the Louis who never came back had made no progress, had not added an inch, not to say a cubit, to his statue, while Mr Henley remained IN STATU QUO, and was so only to be judged.It is an instance of the imperfect sympathy which Charles Lamb finely celebrated - only here it is acknowledged, and the "imperfect sympathy" pled as a ground for claiming the full insight which only sympathy can secure.If Mr Henley was fair to the Louis he knew and loved, it is clear that he was and could only be unjust to the Louis who went away in 1887 and never came back.
"At bottom Stevenson was an excellent fellow.But he was of his essence what the French call PERSONNEL.He was, that is, incessantly and passionately interested in Stevenson.He could not be in the same room with a mirror but he must invite its confidences every time he passed it; to him there was nothing obvious in time and eternity, and the smallest of his discoveries, his most trivial apprehensions, were all by way of being revelations, and as revelations must be thrust upon the world; he was never so much in earnest, never so well pleased (this were he happy or wretched), never so irresistible as when he wrote about himself.WITHAL, IF HE WANTED A THING, HE WENT AFTER IT WITH AN ENTIRE CONTEMPT OF CONSEQUENCES.FOR THESE, INDEED, THE SHORTER CATECHISM WAS EVER PREPARED TO ANSWER; SO THAT WHETHER HE DID WELL OR ILL, HE WAS SAFE TO COME OUT UNABASHED AND CHEERFUL."
Notice here, how undiscerning the mentor becomes.The words put in "italics," unqualified as they are, would fit and admirably cover the character of the greatest criminal.They would do as they stand, for Wainwright, for Dr Dodd, for Deeming, for Neil Cream, for Canham Read, or for Dougal of Moat Farm fame.And then the touch that, in the Shorter Catechism, Stevenson would have found a cover or justification for it somehow! This comes of writing under a keen sense of grievance; and how could this be truly said of one who was "at bottom an excellent fellow." W.Henley's ethics are about as clear-obscure as is his reading of character.Listen to him once again - more directly on the literary point.
"To tell the truth, his books are none of mine; I mean that if I wanted reading, I do not go for it to the EDINBURGH EDITION.I am not interested in remarks about morals; in and out of letters.I HAVE LIVED A FULL AND VARIED LIFE, and my opinions are my own.SO, IF I CRAVE THE ENCHANTMENT OF ROMANCE, I ASK IT OF BIGGER MEN THAN HE, AND OF BIGGER BOOKS THAN HIS: of ESMOND (say) and GREAT EXPECTATIONS, of REDGAUNTLET and OLD MORTALITY, OF LA REINE MARGOT and BRAGELONNE, of DAVID COPPERFIELD and A TALE OF TWO CITIES;
while if good writing and some other things be in my appetite, are there not always Hazlitt and Lamb - to say nothing of that globe of miraculous continents; which is known to us as Shakespeare? There is his style, you will say, and it is a fact that it is rare, and IN THE LAST times better, because much simpler than in the first.
