The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1895-02-02

ONh.A x w. -ANen~e..a
IT was man of true worth, a gentle
soul, and writer of rare gifts, who ode
parted hence" not many weeks ago from
his island home under the sunny skies
of Samoa. 1t has been said that some
time before his death, Mr.. Stevenson had
been suffering from exhaustion of the
brain, and had been haunted by the fear
that his popularity was waning. In this,
however, he was certainly mistaken for no
writer of recent days has won higher
place or stronger hold on the esteem Of
the reading public, and held it more
firmly, than Robert Louis Stevenson
When critic so eminent and so discrim.
mating as Mr.. Philip Gilbert Hamerton
has been moved to pronounce Mr..
Stevenson lone of the most perfect
writers living" there is surely ground
for the belief that the author of "Treas-
ure Island" is not to be numbered among
the literary ephemera of the day. He
belongs to the circle of noveists who
have succeeded Thackeray. Dickens and
Reade, but it is yet too early and per-
spective is too short to enable any one to
make fair and unprecedented compari-
son between Mr.. Stevenson and these
masters of the novelist's art. Some of
Mr.. Stevenson's most ardent admirers
have seen strong resemblapces between
him and Walter Scott, and others have
likened his Treasure Island" to the i'm
mortal Robinson Crusoe" The resem-
blance to Scott was certainly true go far
as nationality goes, for Mr.. Stevenson
was born in Edinburgh, on Nov. Il. 1850,
and was always proud of the fact that
he was Scotchman. THE happest
lot on earth" he says in one of his
books, lis be born Scotchman. You
may pay for it in many ways. as for all
other advantages on earth. You have
to learn the paraphrases and the Shorter
Catechism; you generally take to drink;
your youth. so far as l can find out, is
time of louder war against society, of
more cutlery and tears and turmoil, than
if you wee born, for instance, in Eng
land. But, somehow, life is warmer and
closer, the hearth burns more redly, the
lights of home shine softer on the rainy
street, the very names endeared in verse
and music cling carer round our
hearts,"
Though he has had sickness for
more or less constant companion. no
man ever tramped this pilgrimage of
life with lighter heart or more resolute
step. And sometimes. when his spirits
fell he just sang TO keep them up. Thus
his courage has availed to make of life
that brought him no very promising
material to begin with, that most noble
and valuable work of art, an admirable,
full and rounded existence. Sudden as
Mr.. Stevenson's death has been, it can
not be said that it has left his life incom-
plete.
One of the most interesting incidents
of Stevenson's career was his visit to the
leper settlement at Nolokai, and his SUBJ
sequent defence of Father Damien. His
"Open Letter" to the Rev. DR.. Hyde, of
Scotland. in defence of the martyr
priest, appeared first in the Scots OBJ
server, and afterward in a little pamph-
lei with brown paper cover. 1t would
seem to be almost forgotten by Mr..
Stevenson's biographers; and yet it is in
style, as he intended it to be, his high
water mark. IF | have learned the
trade of using words" he wrote to DIR.
Hyde, you have at last furnished me
with a subject" If only as autobiogra-
ply. the pamphlet takes foremost
place among the Stevenson documents.
He tells of his own visit to the leper set
Element, which he wept to approach, and
which he found to be peopled by these
butt-ends of human beings" these
"abominable determinations of our COM
mon manhood" these "blots on the land
scape." He who had slept out in the
pine woods pictured Damien when "he
made his great remuneration and slept
that first night under a tree amidst his
rotting brethren" DR. Hyde is re-
minded by Mr.. Stevenson that he, too,
is a Scotchman, and of the same sect,
''as far as any sect avows me-" but such
ties we're snapped by the libel on Da-
mien. (which, il you had filed me with
bread while l was starving. if you had
sat up to nurse my father while l was a
dying, would yet absolve me from the
bonds of gratitude" So could tender
soul speak when moved by feelings uf
righteous indien ation.
OF the origin of at least two of Stew.