Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated) (1206 page)
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Authors: SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
Stevenson was deeply influenced by Meredith, and even in these books the influence of the master is apparent. There is the apt use of an occasional archaic or unusual word, the short, strong descriptions, the striking metaphors, the somewhat staccato fashion of speech. Yet, in spite of this flavour, they have quite individuality enough to constitute a school of their own. Their faults, or rather perhaps their limitations, lie never in the execution, but entirely in the original conception. They picture only one side of life, and that a strange and exceptional one. There is no female interest. We feel that it is an apotheosis of the boy-story — the penny number of our youth in excelsis. But it is all so good, so fresh, so picturesque, that, however limited its scope, it still retains a definite and well-assured place in literature. There is no reason why “Treasure Island” should not be to the rising generation of the twenty-first century what “Robinson Crusoe” has been to that of the nineteenth. The balance of probability is all in that direction.
The modern masculine novel, dealing almost exclusively with the rougher, more stirring side of life, with the objective rather than the subjective, marks the reaction against the abuse of love in fiction. This one phase of life in its orthodox aspect, and ending in the conventional marriage, has been so hackneyed and worn to a shadow, that it is not to be wondered at that there is a tendency sometimes to swing to the other extreme, and to give it less than its fair share in the affairs of men. In British fiction nine books out of ten have held up love and marriage as the be-all and end-all of life. Yet we know, in actual practice, that this may not be so. In the career of the average man his marriage is an incident, and a momentous incident; but it is only one of several. He is swayed by many strong emotions — his business, his ambitions, his friendships, his struggles with the recurrent dangers and difficulties which tax a man’s wisdom and his courage. Love will often play a subordinate part in his life. How many go through the world without ever loving at all? It jars upon us then to have it continually held up as the predominating, all-important fact in life; and there is a not unnatural tendency among a certain school, of which Stevenson is certainly the leader, to avoid altogether a source of interest which has been so misused and overdone. If all love-making were like that between Richard Feverel and Lucy Desborough, then indeed we could not have too much of it; but to be made attractive once more, the passion must be handled by some great master who has courage to break down conventionalities and to go straight to actual life for his inspiration.
The use of novel and piquant forms of speech is one of the most obvious of Stevenson’s devices. No man handles his adjectives with greater judgment and nicer discrimination. There is hardly a page of his work where we do not come across words and expressions which strike us with a pleasant sense of novelty, and yet express the meaning with admirable conciseness. “His eyes came coasting round to me.” It is dangerous to begin quoting, as the examples are interminable, and each suggests another. Now and then he misses his mark, but it is very seldom. As an example, an “eye-shot” does not commend itself as a substitute for “a glance,” and “to tee-hee” for “to giggle” grates somewhat upon the ear, though the authority of Chaucer might be cited for the expressions.
Next in order is his extraordinary faculty for the use of pithy similes, which arrest the attention and stimulate the imagination. “His voice sounded hoarse and awkward, like a rusty lock.” “I saw her sway, like something stricken by the wind.” “His laugh rang false, like a cracked bell.” “His voice shook like a taut rope.” “My mind flying like a weaver’s shuttle.” “His blows resounded on the grave as thick as sobs.” “The private guilty considerations I would continually observe to peep forth in the man’s talk like rabbits from a hill.” Nothing could be more effective than these direct and homely comparisons.
After all, however, the main characteristic of Stevenson is his curious instinct for saying in the briefest space just those few words which stamp the impression upon the reader’s mind. He will make you see a thing more clearly than you would probably have done had your eyes actually rested upon it. Here are a few of these word-pictures, taken haphazard from among hundreds of equal merit —
“Not far off Macconochie was standing with his tongue out of his mouth, and his hand upon his chin, like a dull fellow thinking hard.
”Stewart ran after us for more than a mile, and I could not
help laughing as I looked back at last and saw him on a hill,
holding his hand to his side, and nearly burst with running.
”Ballantrae turned to me with a face all wrinkled up, and his
teeth all showing in his mouth…. He said no word, but his
whole appearance was a kind of dreadful question.
”Look at him, if you doubt; look at him, grinning and gulping,
a detected thief.
”He looked me all over with a warlike eye, and I could see the
challenge on his lips.”
What could be more vivid than the effect produced by such sentences as these?
There is much more that might be said as to Stevenson’s peculiar and original methods in fiction. As a minor point, it might be remarked that he is the inventor of what may be called the mutilated villain. It is true that Mr. Wilkie Collins has described one gentleman who had not only been deprived of all his limbs, but was further afflicted by the insupportable name of Miserrimus Dexter. Stevenson, however, has used the effect so often, and with such telling results, that he may be said to have made it his own. To say nothing of Hyde, who was the very impersonation of deformity, there is the horrid blind Pew, Black Dog with two fingers missing, Long John with his one leg, and the sinister catechist who is blind but shoots by ear, and smites about him with his staff. In “The Black Arrow,” too, there is another dreadful creature who comes tapping along with a stick. Often as he has used the device, he handles it so artistically that it never fails to produce its effect.
Is Stevenson a classic? Well, it is a large word that. You mean by a classic a piece of work which passes into the permanent literature of the country. As a rule, you only know your classics when they are in their graves. Who guessed it of Poe, and who of Borrow? The Roman Catholics only canonize their saints a century after their death. So with our classics. The choice lies with our grandchildren. But I can hardly think that healthy boys will ever let Stevenson’s books of adventure die, nor do I think that such a short tale as “The Pavilion on the Links” nor so magnificent a parable as “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” will ever cease to be esteemed. How well I remember the eagerness, the delight with which I read those early tales in “Cornhill” away back in the late seventies and early eighties. They were unsigned, after the old unfair fashion, but no man with any sense of prose could fail to know that they were all by the same author. Only years afterwards did I learn who that author was.
I have Stevenson’s collected poems over yonder in the small cabinet. Would that he had given us more! Most of them are the merest playful sallies of a freakish mind. But one should, indeed, be a classic, for it is in my judgment by all odds the best narrative ballad of the last century — that is if I am right in supposing that “The Ancient Mariner” appeared at the very end of the eighteenth. I would put Coleridge’s tour de force of grim fancy first, but I know none other to compare in glamour and phrase and easy power with “Ticonderoga.” Then there is his immortal epitaph. The two pieces alone give him a niche of his own in our poetical literature, just as his character gives him a niche of his own in our affections. No, I never met him. But among my most prized possessions are several letters which I received from Samoa. From that distant tower he kept a surprisingly close watch upon what was doing among the bookmen, and it was his hand which was among the first held out to the striver, for he had quick appreciation and keen sympathies which met another man’s work half-way, and wove into it a beauty from his own mind.
And now, my very patient friend, the time has come for us to part, and I hope my little sermons have not bored you over-much. If I have put you on the track of anything which you did not know before, then verify it and pass it on. If I have not, there is no harm done, save that my breath and your time have been wasted. There may be a score of mistakes in what I have said — is it not the privilege of the conversationalist to misquote? My judgments may differ very far from yours, and my likings may be your abhorrence; but the mere thinking and talking of books is in itself good, be the upshot what it may. For the time the magic door is still shut. You are still in the land of faerie. But, alas, though you shut that door, you cannot seal it. Still come the ring of bell, the call of telephone, the summons back to the sordid world of work and men and daily strife. Well, that’s the real life after all — this only the imitation. And yet, now that the portal is wide open and we stride out together, do we not face our fate with a braver heart for all the rest and quiet and comradeship that we found behind the Magic Door?
