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Francis Turner Palgrave - "A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick"

Sir Francis Bacon - "The New Atlantis"

Thomas Henry Huxley - "ON THE RECEPTION OF THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES'"

Plato - "Philebus"

Robert Louis Stevenson, A Record, An Estimate, A Memorial

A >> A. H. Japp >> Robert Louis Stevenson, A Record, An Estimate, A Memorial





"Give to me the life I love,
Let the lave go by me;
Give the jolly heaven above,
And the by-way nigh me:
Bed in the bush, with stars to see;
Bread I dip in the river -
Here's the life for a man like me,
Here's the life for ever....

"Let the blow fall soon or late;
Let what will be o'er me;
Give the face of earth around
And the road before me.
Health I ask not, hope nor love,
Nor a friend to know me:
All I ask the heaven above,
And the road below me."


True; this is put in the mouth of another, but Stevenson could not
have so voiced it, had he not been the born rover that he was, with
longing for the roadside, the high hills, and forests and newcomers
and varied miscellaneous company. Here he does more directly speak
in his own person and quite to the same effect:


"I will make you brooches and toys for your delight
Of bird song at morning, and star shine at night,
I will make a palace fit for you and me,
Of green days in forests and blue days at sea.

"I will make my kitchen, and you shall keep your room,
Where white flows the river, and bright blows the broom,
And you shall wash your linen and keep your body white,
In rainfall at morning and dew-fall at night.

"And this shall be for music when no one else is near,
The fine song for singing, the rare song to hear!
That only I remember, that only you admire,
Of the broad road that stretches, and the roadside fire."


Here Stevenson, though original in his vein and way, but follows a
great and gracious company in which Fielding and Sterne and so many
others stand as pleasant proctors. Scott and Dickens have each in
their way essayed it, and made much of it beyond what mere
sentiment would have reached. PICKWICK itself - and we must always
regard Dickens as having himself gone already over every bit of
road, described every nook and corner, and tried every resource -
is a vagrant fellow, in a group of erratic and most quaint
wanderers or pilgrims. This is but a return phase of it; Vincent
Crummles and Mrs Crummles and the "Infant Phenomenon," yet another.
The whole interest lies in the roadways, and the little inns, and
the odd and unexpected RENCONTRES with oddly-assorted fellows there
experienced: glimpses of grim or grimy, or forbidding, or happy,
smiling smirking vagrants, and out-at-elbows fellow-passengers and
guests, with jests and quips and cranks, and hanky-panky even. On
high roads and in inns, and alehouses, with travelling players,
rogues and tramps, Dickens was quite at home; and what is yet more,
he made us all quite at home with them: and he did it as Chaucer
did it by thorough good spirits and "hail-fellow-well-met." And,
with all his faults, he has this merit as well as some others, that
he went willingly on pilgrimage always, and took others, promoting
always love of comrades, fun, and humorous by-play. The latest
great romancer, too, took his side: like Dickens, he was here full
brother of Dan Chaucer, and followed him. How characteristic it is
when he tells Mr Trigg that he preferred Samoa to Honolulu because
it was more savage, and therefore yielded more FUN.



CHAPTER XXX - LORD ROSEBERY'S CASE



IMMEDIATELY on reading Lord Rosebery's address as Chairman of the
meeting in Edinburgh to promote the erection of a monument to R. L.
Stevenson, I wrote to him politely asking him whether, since he
quoted a passage from a somewhat early essay by Stevenson naming
the authors who had chiefly influenced him in point of style, his
Lordship should not, merely in justice and for the sake of balance,
have referred to Thoreau. I also remarked that Stevenson's later
style sometimes showed too much self-conscious conflict of his
various models in his mind while he was in the act of writing, and
that this now and then imparted too much an air of artifice to his
later compositions, and that those who knew most would be most
troubled by it. Of that letter, I much regret now that I did not
keep any copy; but I think I did incidentally refer to the
friendship with which Stevenson had for so many years honoured me.
This is a copy of the letter received in reply:


"38 BERKELEY SQUARE, W.,
17th DECEMBER 1896.

"DEAR SIR, - I am much obliged for your letter, and can only state
that the name of Thoreau was not mentioned by Stevenson himself,
and therefore I could not cite it in my quotation.

"With regard to the style of Stevenson's later works, I am inclined
to agree with you.-Believe me, yours very faithfully,
ROSEBERY.
"Dr ALEXANDER H. JAPP."


This I at once replied to as follows:


"NATIONAL LIBERAL CLUB,
WHITEHALL. PLACE, S.W.,
19TH DECEMBER 1896.


"MY LORD, - It is true R. L. Stevenson did not refer to Thoreau in
the passage to which you allude, for the good reason that he could
not, since he did not know Thoreau till after it was written; but
if you will oblige me and be so good as to turn to p. xix. of
Preface, BY WAY OF CRITICISM, to FAMILIAR STUDIES OF MEN AND BOOKS
you will read:

"'Upon me this pure, narrow, sunnily-ascetic Thoreau had exercised
a wondrous charm. I HAVE SCARCE WRITTEN TEN SENTENCES SINCE I WAS
INTRODUCED TO HIM, BUT HIS INFLUENCE MIGHT BE SOMEWHERE DETECTED BY
A CLOSE OBSERVER.'

"It is very detectable in many passages of nature-description and
of reflection. I write, my Lord, merely that, in case opportunity
should arise, you might notice this fact. I am sure R. L.
Stevenson would have liked it recognised. - I remain, my Lord,
always yours faithfully, etc.,

ALEXANDER H. JAPP."


In reply to this Lord Rosebery sent me only the most formal
acknowledgment, not in the least encouraging me in any way to
further aid him in the matter with regard to suggestions of any
kind; so that I was helpless to press on his lordship the need for
some corrections on other points which I would most willingly have
tendered to him had he shown himself inclined or ready to receive
them.

I might also have referred Lord Rosebery to the article in THE
BRITISH WEEKLY (1887), "Books that have Influenced Me," where,
after having spoken of Shakespeare, the VICOMTE DE BRAGELONNE,
Bunyan, Montaigne, Goethe, Martial, Marcus Aurelius's MEDITATIONS,
and Wordsworth, he proceeds:


"I suppose, when I am done, I shall find that I have forgotten much
that is influential, as I see already I have forgotten Thoreau."


I need but to add to what has been said already that, had Lord
Rosebery written and told me the result of his references and
encouraged me to such an exercise, I should by-and-by have been
very pleased to point out to him that he blundered, proving himself
no master in Burns' literature, precisely as Mr Henley blundered
about Burns' ancestry, when he gives confirmation to the idea that
Burns came of a race of peasants on both sides, and was himself
nothing but a peasant.

When the opportunity came to correct such blunders, corrections
which I had even implored him to make, Lord Rosebery (who by
several London papers had been spoken of as "knowing more than all
the experts about all his themes"), that is, when his volume was
being prepared for press, did not act on my good advice given him
"FREE, GRATIS, FOR NOTHING"; no; he contented himself with simply
slicing out columns from the TIMES, or allowing another man to do
so for him, and reprinting them LITERATIM ET VERBATIM, all
imperfect and misleading, as they stood. SCRIPTA MANET alas! only
too truly exemplified to his disadvantage. But with that note of
mine in his hand, protesting against an ominous and fatal omission
as regards the confessed influences that had operated on Stevenson,
he goes on, or allows Mr Geake to go on, quite as though he had
verified matters and found that I was wrong as regards the facts on
which I based my appeal to him for recognition of Thoreau as having
influenced Stevenson in style. Had he attended to correcting his
serious errors about Stevenson, and some at least of those about
Burns, thus adding, say, a dozen or twenty pages to his book wholly
fresh and new and accurate, then the TIMES could not have got, even
if it had sought, an injunction against his publishers and him; and
there would have been no necessity that he should pad out other and
later speeches by just a little whining over what was entirely due
to his own disregard of good advice, his own neglect - his own
fault - a neglect and a fault showing determination not to revise
where revision in justice to his subject's own free and frank
acknowledgments made it most essential and necessary.

Mr Justice North gave his decision against Lord Rosebery and his
publishers, while the Lords of Appeal went in his favour; but the
House of Lords reaffirmed the decision of Mr Justice North and
granted a perpetual injunction against this book. The copyright in
his speech is Lord Rosebery's, but the copyright in the TIMES'
report is the TIMES'. You see one of the ideas underlying the law
is that no manner of speech is quite perfect as the man speaks it,
or is beyond revision, improvement, or extension, and, if there is
but one VERBATIM report, as was the case of some of these speeches
and addresses, then it is incumbent on the author, if he wishes to
preserve his copyright, to revise and correct his speeches and
addresses, so as to make them at least in details so far differ
from the reported form. This thing ought Lord Rosebery to have
done, on ethical and literary GROUNDS, not to speak of legal and
self-interested grounds; and I, for one, who from the first held
exactly the view the House of Lords has affirmed, do confess that I
have no sympathy for Lord Rosebery, since he had before him the
suggestion and the materials for as substantial alterations and
additions from my own hands, with as much more for other portions
of his book, had he informed me of his appreciation, as would have
saved him and his book from such a sadly ironical fate as has
overtaken him and it.

From the whole business - since "free, gratis, for nothing," I
offered him as good advice as any lawyer in the three kingdoms
could have done for large payment, and since he never deemed it
worth while, even to tell me the results of his reference to
FAMILIAR STUDIES, I here and now say deliberately that his conduct
to me was scarcely so courteous and grateful and graceful as it
might have been. How different - very different - the way in which
the late R. L. Stevenson rewarded me for a literary service no whit
greater or more essentially valuable to him than this service
rendered to Lord Rosebery might have been to him.

This chapter would most probably not have been printed, had not Mr
Coates re-issued the inadequate and most misleading paragraph about
Mr Stevenson and style in his Lord Rosebery's LIFE AND SPEECHES
exactly as it was before, thus perpetuating at once the error and
the wrong, in spite of all my trouble, warnings, and protests. It
is a tragicomedy, if not a farce altogether, considering who are
the principal actors in it. And let those who have copies of the
queer prohibited book cherish them and thank me; for that I do by
this give a new interest and value to it as a curiosity, law-
inhibited, if not as high and conscientious literature - which it
is not.

I remember very well about the time Lord Rosebery spoke on Burns,
and Stevenson, and London, that certain London papers spoke of his
deliverances as indicating more knowledge - fuller and exacter
knowledge - of all these subjects than the greatest professed
experts possessed. That is their extravagant and most reckless
way, especially if the person spoken about is a "great politician"
or a man of rank. They think they are safe with such superlatives
applied to a brilliant and clever peer (with large estates and many
interests), and an ex-Prime Minister! But literature is a
republic, and it must here be said, though all unwillingly, that
Lord Rosebery is but an amateur - a superficial though a clever
amateur after all, and their extravagances do not change the fact.
I declare him an amateur in Burns' literature and study because of
what I have said elsewhere, and there are many points to add to
that if need were. I have proved above from his own words that he
was crassly and unpardonably ignorant of some of the most important
points in R. L. Stevenson's development when he delivered that
address in Edinburgh on Stevenson - a thing very, very pardonable -
seeing that he is run after to do "speakings" of this sort; but to
go on, in face of such warning and protest, printing his most
misleading errors is not pardonable, and the legal recorded result
is my justification and his condemnation, the more surely that even
that would not awaken him so far as to cause him to restrain Mr
Coates from reproducing in his LIFE AND SPEECHES, just as it was
originally, that peccant passage. I am fully ready to prove also
that, though Chairman of the London County Council for a period,
and though he made a very clever address at one of Sir W. Besant's
lectures, there is much yet - very much - he might learn from Sir
W. Besant's writings on London. It isn't so easy to outshine all
the experts - even for a clever peer who has been Prime Minister,
though it is very, very easy to flatter Lord Rosebery, with a
purpose or purposes, as did at least once also with rarest tact, at
Glasgow, indicating so many other things and possibilities, a
certain very courtly ex-Moderator of the Church of Scotland.



CHAPTER XXXI - MR GOSSE AND MS. OF TREASURE ISLAND



MR EDMUND GOSSE has been so good as to set down, with rather an air
of too much authority, that both R. L. Stevenson and I deceived
ourselves completely in the matter of my little share in the
TREASURE ISLAND business, and that too much credit was sought by me
or given to me, for the little service I rendered to R. L.
Stevenson, and to the world, say, in helping to secure for it an
element of pleasure through many generations. I have not SOUGHT
any recognition from the world in this matter, and even the mention
of it became so intolerable to me that I eschewed all writing about
it, in the face of the most stupid and misleading statements, till
Mr Sidney Colvin wrote and asked me to set down my account of the
matter in my own words. This I did, as it would have been really
rude to refuse a request so graciously made, and the reader has it
in the ACADEMY of 10th March 1900. Nevertheless, Mr Gosse's
statements were revived and quoted, and the thing seemed ever to
revolve again in a round of controversy.

Now, with regard to the reliability in this matter of Mr Edmund
Gosse, let me copy here a little note made at request some time
ago, dealing with two points. The first is this:


1. MOST ASSUREDLY I carried away from Braemar in my portmanteau, as
R. L. Stevenson says in IDLER'S article and in chapter of MY FIRST
BOOK reprinted in EDINBURGH EDITION, several chapters of TREASURE
ISLAND. On that point R. L. Stevenson, myself, and Mr James
Henderson, to whom I took these, could not all be wrong and co-
operating to mislead the public. These chapters, at least vii. or
viii., as Mr Henderson remembers, would include the FIRST THREE,
that is, FINALLY REVISED VERSIONS FOR PRESS. Mr Gosse could not
then HAVE HEARD R. L. STEVENSON READ FROM THESE FINAL VERSIONS BUT
FROM FIRST DRAUGHTS ONLY, and I am positively certain that with
some of the later chapters R. L. Stevenson wrote them off-hand, and
with great ease, and did not revise them to the extent of at all
needing to re-write them, as I remember he was proud to tell me,
being then fully in the vein, as he put it, and pleased to credit
me with a share in this good result, and saying "my enthusiasm over
it had set him up steep." There was then, in my idea, a necessity
that Stevenson should fill up a gap by verbal summary to Mr Gosse
(which Mr Gosse has forgotten), bringing the incident up to a
further point than Mr Gosse now thinks. I am certain of my facts
under this head; and as Mr Gosse clearly fancies he heard R. L.
Stevenson read all from final versions and is mistaken - COMPLETELY
mistaken there - he may be just as wrong and the victim of error or
bad memory elsewhere after the lapse of more than twenty years.

2. I gave the pencilled outline of incident and plot to Mr
Henderson - a fact he distinctly remembers. This fact completely
meets and disposes of Mr Robert Leighton's quite imaginative BILLY
BO'SUN notion, and is absolute as to R. L. Stevenson before he left
Braemar on the 21st September 1881, or even before I left it on
26th August 1881, having clear in his mind the whole scheme of the
work, though we know very well that the absolute re-writing out
finally for press of the concluding part of the book was done at
Davos. Mr Henderson has always made it the strictest rule in his
editorship that the complete outline of the plot and incident of
the latter part of a story must be supplied to him, if the whole
story is not submitted to him in MS.; and the agreement, if I am
not much mistaken, was entered into days before R. L. Stevenson
left Braemar, and when he came up to London some short time after
to go to Weybridge, the only arrangement then needed to be made was
about the forwarding of proofs to him.

The publication of TREASURE ISLAND in YOUNG FOLKS began on the 1st
October 1881, No. 565 and ran on in the following order:


OCTOBER 1, 1881.
THE PROLOGUE

No. 565.

I. The Old Sea Dog at the Admiral Benbow.
II. Black Dog Appears and Disappears.

No. 566.

Dated OCTOBER 8, 1881.

III. The Black Spot.

No. 567.

Dated OCTOBER 15, 1881.

IV. The Sea Chart.
V. The Last of the Blind Man.
VI. The Captain's Papers.

No. 568.

Dated OCTOBER 22, 1881.

THE STORY

I. I go to Bristol.
II. The Sea-Cook.
Ill. Powder and Arms.


Now, as the numbers of YOUNG FOLKS were printed about a fortnight
in advance of the date they bear under the title, it is clear that
not only must the contract have been executed days before the
middle of September, but that a large proportion of the COPY must
have been in Mr Henderson's hands at that date too, as he must have
been entirely satisfied that the story would go on and be finished
in a definite time. On no other terms would he have begun the
publication of it. He was not in the least likely to have accepted
a story from a man who, though known as an essayist, had not yet
published anything in the way of a long story, on the ground merely
of three chapters of prologue. Mr Gosse left Braemar on 5th
September, when he says nine chapters were written, and Mr
Henderson had offered terms for the story before the last of these
could have reached him. That is on seeing, say six chapters of
prologue. But when Mr Gosse speaks about three chapters only
written, does he mean three of the prologue or three of the story,
in addition to prologue, or what does he mean? The facts are
clear. I took away in my portmanteau a large portion of the MS.,
together with a very full outline of the rest of the story, so that
Mr Stevenson was, despite Mr Gosse's cavillings, SUBSTANTIALLY
right when he wrote in MY FIRST BOOK in the IDLER, etc., that "when
he (Dr Japp) left us he carried away the manuscript in his
portmanteau." There was nothing of the nature of an abandonment of
the story at any point, nor any difficulty whatever arose in this
respect in regard to it.



CHAPTER XXXII - STEVENSON PORTRAITS



OF the portraits of Stevenson a word or two may be said. There is
a very good early photograph of him, taken not very long before the
date of my visit to him at Braemar in 1881, and is an admirable
likeness - characteristic not only in expression, but in pose and
attitude, for it fixes him in a favourite position of his; and is,
at the same time, very easy and natural. The velvet jacket, as I
have remarked, was then his habitual wear, and the thin fingers
holding the constant cigarette an inseparable associate and
accompaniment.

He acknowledged himself that he was a difficult subject to paint -
not at all a good sitter - impatient and apt to rebel at posing and
time spent in arrangement of details - a fact he has himself, as we
shall see, set on record in his funny verses to Count Nerli, who
painted as successful a portrait as any. The little miniature,
full-length, by Mr J. S. Sarjent, A.R.A., which was painted at
Bournemouth in 1885, is confessedly a mere sketch and much of a
caricature: it is in America. Sir W. B. Richmond has an
unfinished portrait, painted in 1885 or 1886 - it has never passed
out of the hands of the artist, - a photogravure from it is our
frontispiece.

There is a medallion done by St Gauden's, representing Stevenson in
bed propped up by pillows. It is thought to be a pretty good
likeness, and it is now in Mr Sidney Colvin's possession. Others,
drawings, etc., are not of much account.

And now we come to the Nerli portrait, of which so much has been
written. Stevenson himself regarded it as the best portrait of him
ever painted, and certainly it also is characteristic and
effective, and though not what may be called a pleasant likeness,
is probably a good representation of him in the later years of his
life. Count Nerli actually undertook a voyage to Samoa in 1892,
mainly with the idea of painting this portrait. He and Stevenson
became great friends, as Stevenson naively tells in the verses we
have already referred to, but even this did not quite overcome
Stevenson's restlessness. He avenged himself by composing these
verses as he sat:


Did ever mortal man hear tell o' sic a ticklin' ferlie
As the comin' on to Apia here o' the painter Mr Nerli?
He cam'; and, O, for o' human freen's o' a' he was the pearlie -
The pearl o' a' the painter folk was surely Mr Nerli.
He took a thraw to paint mysel'; he painted late and early;
O wow! the many a yawn I've yawned i' the beard o' Mr Nerli.
Whiles I wad sleep and whiles wad wake, an' whiles was mair than
surly;
I wondered sair as I sat there fornent the eyes o' Nerli.
O will he paint me the way I want, as bonnie as a girlie?
O will he paint me an ugly tyke? - and be d-d to Mr Nerli.
But still an' on whichever it be, he is a canty kerlie,
The Lord protect the back an' neck o' honest Mr Nerli.


Mr Hammerton gives this account of the Nerli portrait:


"The history of the Nerli portrait is peculiar. After being
exhibited for some time in New Zealand it was bought, in the course
of this year, by a lady who was travelling there, for a hundred
guineas. She then offered it for that sum to the Scottish National
Portrait Gallery; but the Trustees of the Board of Manufactures -
that oddly named body to which is entrusted the fostering care of
Art in Scotland, and, in consequence, the superintendence of the
National Portrait Gallery - did not see their way to accept the
offer. Some surprise has been expressed at the action of the
Trustees in thus declining to avail themselves of the opportunity
of obtaining the portrait of one of the most distinguished Scotsmen
of recent times. It can hardly have been for want of money, for
though the funds at their disposal for the purchase of ordinary
works of art are but limited, no longer ago than last year they
were the recipients of a very handsome legacy from the late Mr J.
M. Gray, the accomplished and much lamented Curator of the Scottish
National Portrait Gallery - a legacy left them for the express
purpose of acquiring portraits of distinguished Scotsmen, and the
income of which was amply sufficient to have enabled them to
purchase this portrait. One is therefore almost shut up to the
conclusion that the Trustees were influenced in their decision by
one of the two following reasons:

"1. That they did not consider Stevenson worthy of a place in the
gallery. This is a position so incomprehensible and so utterly
opposed to public sentiment that one can hardly credit it having
been the cause of this refusal. Whatever may be the place which
Stevenson may ultimately take as an author, and however opinions
may differ as to the merits of his work, no one can deny that he
was one of the most popular writers of his day, and that as a mere
master of style, if for nothing else, his works will be read so
long as there are students of English Literature. Surely the
portrait of one for whom such a claim may legitimately be made
cannot be considered altogether unworthy of a place in the National
Collection, as one of Scotland's most distinguished sons.

"2. The only other reason which can be suggested as having weighed
with the Trustees in their decision is one which in some cases
might be held to be worthy of consideration. It is conceivable
that in the case of some men the Trustees might be of opinion that
there was plenty of time to consider the matter, and that in the
meantime there was always the chance of some generous donor
presenting them with a portrait. But, as has been shown above, the
portraits of Stevenson are practically confined to two: one of
these is in America, and there is not the least chance of its ever
coming here; and the other they have refused. And, as it is
understood that the Trustees have a rule that they do not accept
any portrait which has not been painted from the life, they
preclude themselves from acquiring a copy of any existing picture
or even a portrait done from memory.

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