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Like all expert craftsmen, he was fond of trying experiments in his art. He exhibited in them a less strenuous manifestation of his genius than in the great romances by which he wanted his achievement to be judged. Treasure Island'. a boy's tale of adventure, and one of the most perfect in workmanship—had a grown-up successor in The Wrecker,' which was avowed to be a tale of incident pure and simple; it was 'Treasure Island' made real by his own experience of voyaging among the islands of the Pacific. 'The Wrong Box' (devised with Mr. Osbourne) was his idea of a mystery tale, with the stage machinery of a farce often painfully present. His ingenious fancy at play showed its best traits in the fantastic tales of the 'New Arabian Nights,' and 'The Dynamiter' (in which Mrs. Stevenson took part). Prince Otto' is a fantasy written under the inspiration of George Meredith; and it contains some of the most graceful and melodious prose that is to be found in Stevenson's writings. Whatever form of literary play his exuberant fancy led him into, it was always marked with originality of expression. Often it was artificial, but never labored or dull. His vivacity, his untiring interest in new things, led him occasionally into trivial and even disappointing experiments; but he carried them off with that gay air which never quite let the reader forget that he was a precocious boy doing his tricks.

The unfailing delight that he got out of his journey through the world is shown most vividly in his volumes of Essays and Travel, from which we have so freely quoted his own expressions of his likes and dislikes, his aspirations and his ideals. To these, readers will always turn for renewed acquaintance with Stevenson the man. His literary essays are cordial appreciations and interpretations by a fellow-craftsman, who knew the difficulties of doing the best work. His other essays are similar appreciations of characters in real life. His travels also resolve themselves into this. Wherever he went he was looking for men who touched some part of his vigorous ideal of manhood, the chief factors in which were always "courage and intelligence." It had many phases; but at the bottom there was a certain loyalty that was the supreme test for vagabond or nobleman. When he found that, much was forgiven. He believed in an "ultimate decency of things; aye, and if I woke in hell, I should still believe it!"

The lyrical expression of this attitude is the inspiration of his poems. To use his own figure of music, his ideal of a prose style was harmony; of a poetic style was melody. In his verse the strain is extremely simple, but it always sings. While he believed that the "grim and terrible" was the best subject for his prose, in his poetry he allowed beauty to lead him. All the gentler emotions that made him so loved by his friends found voice in his verse. Many of them

were directly inspired by personal friendships. Loyalty to his country and his friends evokes the sweetest music:

"It's an owercome sooth for age an' youth,

And it brooks wi' nae denial,

That the dearest friends are the auldest friends,

And the young are just on trial.»

While his deepest feelings are expressed in Underwoods,' his tenderest are found in 'A Child's Garden of Verses.' Its simplicity, and the delicate truth with which it images a child's fancies, have made it a classic of childhood. The conscious artist is never evident in it. It seems to be the spontaneous expression of a child's mind.

The place that Stevenson will take in literature is surely not to be made evident so long as the glamour of his personality remains over those who were his contemporaries. And with this personality so fully interwoven with his works, it seems hard to believe that the glamour can soon fade away. It is easy to imagine that, like Charles Lamb, he can never become wholly a "figure in literature," but will remain vividly present to many generations of readers as a gifted child of genius who is to be fervently loved.

Robert Bridges,
Droc.)

BED IN SUMMER

From Poems and Ballads.' By permission of the authorized publishers, Charles Scribner's Sons

TRAVEL

From Poems and Ballads. By permission of the authorized publishers, Charles Scribner's Sons

I

SHOULD like to rise and go

Where the golden apples grow;

Where below another sky

Parrot islands anchored lie,

And, watched by cockatoos and goats,
Lonely Crusoes building boats;-
Where in sunshine reaching out,
Eastern cities, miles about,

Are with mosque and minaret

Among sandy gardens set,

And the rich goods from near and far

Hang for sale in the bazaar;

Where the Great Wall round China goes,

And on one side the desert blows,

And with bell and voice and druin,

Cities on the other hum; —

Where are forest, hot as fire,

Wide as England, tall as a spire,

Full of apes and cocoanuts

And the negro hunters' huts;-
Where the knotty crocodile
Lies and blinks in the Nile,

And the red flamingo flies
Hunting fish before his eyes; —
Where in jungles, near and far,
Man-devouring tigers are,
Lying close and giving ear

Lest the hunt be drawing near,

Or a comer-by be seen
Swinging in a palanquin; -
Where among the desert sands

Some deserted city stands,

All its children, sweep and prince,
Grown to manhood ages since,

Not a foot in street or house,

Not a stir of child or mouse,
And when kindly falls the night,
In all the town no spark of light.
There I'll come when I'm a man,
With a camel caravan;

Light a fire in the gloom
Of some dusty dining-room;
See the pictures on the walls,
Heroes, fights, and festivals;
And in a corner find the toys
Of the old Egyptian boys.

THE LAND OF COUNTERPANE

From 'Poems and Ballads. By permission of the authorized publishers, Charles Scribner's Sons

HEN I was sick and lay a-bed,

WHE

I had two pillows at my head,
And all my toys beside me lay
To keep me happy all the day.

And sometimes for an hour or so
I watched my leaden soldiers go,
With different uniforms and drills,
Among the bedclothes, through the hills.

And sometimes sent my ships in fleets
All up and down among the sheets;
Or brought my trees and houses out,
And planted cities all about.

I was the giant great and still

That sits upon the pillow-hill,

And sees before him, dale and plain,
The pleasant Land of Counterpane.

NORTHWEST PASSAGE

From Poems and Ballads.' By permission of the authorized publishers, Charles Scribner's Sons

XXIV-872

I. GOOD-NIGHT

HEN the bright lamp is carried in,

WHE

The sunless hours again begin;
O'er all without, in field and lane,
The haunted night returns again.

Now we behold the embers flee
About the firelit hearth; and see

All round the house is the jet-black night:
It stares through the window-pane;
It crawls in the corners, hiding from the light,
And it moves with the moving flame.

Now my little heart goes a-beating like a drum,
With the breath of the Bogie in my hair;

And all round the candle the crooked shadows come,
And go marching along up the stair.

The shadow of the balusters, the shadow of the lamp, The shadow of the child that goes to bed,

All the wicked shadows coming, tramp, tramp, tramp, With the black night overhead.

III. IN PORT

Last, to the chamber where I lie

My fearful footsteps patter nigh,

And come from out the cold and gloom

Into my warm and cheerful room.

There, safe arrived, we turn about
To keep the coming shadows out,
And close the happy door at last
On all the perils that we past.

Then, when mamma goes by to bed,
She shall come in with tiptoe tread,
And see me lying warm and fast
And in the Land of Nod at last.