The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1894-12-17

and is Independent IN its Uiesos on u" local
questions.
The Death of Robert Louis stevenson.
In all the variety OF events recorded
in the papers this morning there Is
perhaps not one of more sad significance
to the world at large than the untimely
death of Robert Louis Stevenson at
Samoa. Here is a vine spirit passed away,
a voice sileneed all too soon which awoke
hearts to higher and nobler emotions
and minds to a keener appreciation of
the beauty sof nature and the brother
hood of humanity.
since Sir Walter Scott, there has been
no such apostle of the open air. The
free, bold life in the greenwood and on
the moor thrilled every fibre of the man
with delight and sympathetically slim
ulated his readers like the breezes of
the spring. On the ocean or mid the
sanguid islands of the tropics his soul
adapted itself ~instinctively to the spirit
of nature. Take him out of doors and
whether it is in the woods of a little
German State. in the bleak and lonely
forests of Northern New York. upon
the moors OF Scotland. in the gardens
Of England, upon a coril reef or amid
plantations of coffee and spices, he is
the presiding. genius Of the scene, and
4r,r ,-,,iN - f,a. moods in endless
change at The magic touch of his
wand.
Bot with all his mastery of inanimate
nature, he was second 20 none in his
understanding of and sympathy with hui
man nature. The man who has given to
the world both prince Otto" and DIR.
Jekyl ami Mr.. Hyde who has left us
'eTroasure Island and kidnapped and
the Master of B~allantrae" and the
.sNew Arabian Nights" has certainly en-
braced a wide range of humanity in his
work. Perhaps. however, the book which
best exhibits the extraordinary scope of
his study of life is The Wrecker." Here
IS a G4le WHICH Is 1alUCueu III TIE OOuli
Pacific, Which takes firm foothold in one
of our Western cities-sAy Chicago or
Detroit, which travels thence to Paris
and comes back by way of Edinburgh to
San Francisco. and leaps from there to
a lagoon in the North Pacific. Return
ing once more to San Francisco, it pays
- III. 1-7Ao Ia-I N
Devonshire, thence goes to the Franco
Swiss borderland, where it takes a new
start, leading to a vivid s~ojourn in Mel
bourne and a wild smuggling cruise to
Samoa. The persons in this wandering
/. tale include an American dreamer and
an American hustler. a French sculptor,
dressmaker, an unfortunate sprig of
British nobility, a hard-hearted old mer-
chant skipper, a Norwegian mate with
Berserker proclivities and a dozen other
strange and characteristic figures from
all quarters of the globe. The wonder
full part of it is that every scene is
equally real III u COlOIS, SNSIy SOul V
with an intense vitality. The story never
loses interest or unity of purpose. L. 1t is
at times truly touching. at times ter
rible, and again sweet and beautiful. All
through it are scattered a wealth of
and aphorisms that would be
a fair life work for an ordinary man.
r xz I.-- 1000
paratively small part in Stevenson's mar
ratives-though it is not altogether ig-
nored. Friendship, on the other hand,
is a principal motive in at least two,
'"The Master of Ballantrae" and 1.-The
wrecker." Fighting brings out his
strongest powers, and the combat on
the smuggling vessel in kidnapped" is
perhaps the very best fight in the Eng
Iish language. In Prince Otto" he has
performed the extraordinary feat of CIV
ing to transitions in external nature all
the interest of Incident. The change
from night to morning while the Prince
wanders through the wood is. in its
way, a thing without an equal.
The death of this man at the age of
forty-four is a loss and a sorrow to
which the ordinary every day calamity
of the newspaper bears no comparison.
1t touches everyone who loves a fine
thought, a mastery observation, an in
SEPARATION to higher things, or that in
comparable art of using language SO
that the sairy nothings" of fiction acquire
life and realty from their embodiment in
words. His, fame has long ago expanded
beyond the range of the English lang
uage and the mourning for his death
win be universal. as will be the wonder
that one who had such strong and glow
ing sympathies with life should himself
have hung on to it by such a feeble
thread.
PUBLIC LIBRARY CIRCULATION.