Far from
the Madding Crowd_, a book which, when it appeared anonymously in the
_Cornhill Magazine_ (1874), was generally attributed to George Eliot, for
the simple reason that no other novelist was supposed to be capable of
writing it. _The Return of the Native_ (1878) and _The Woodlanders_ are
generally regarded as Hardy's masterpieces; but two novels of our own day,
_Tess of the D'Ubervilles_ (1891) and _Jude the Obscure_ (1895), are better
expressions of Hardy's literary art and of his gloomy philosophy.

STEVENSON. In pleasing contrast with Hardy is Robert Louis Stevenson
(1850-1894), a brave, cheery, wholesome spirit, who has made us all braver
and cheerier by what he has written. Aside from their intrinsic value,
Stevenson's novels are interesting in this respect,--that they mark a
return to the pure romanticism of Walter Scott. The novel of the nineteenth
century had, as we have shown, a very definite purpose. It aimed not only
to represent life but to correct it, and to offer a solution to pressing
moral and social problems. At the end of the century Hardy's gloom in the
face of modern social conditions became oppressive, and Stevenson broke
away from it into that land of delightful romance in which youth finds an
answer to all its questions. Problems differ, but youth is ever the same,
and therefore Stevenson will probably be regarded by future generations as
one of our most enduring writers. To his life, with its "heroically happy"
struggle, first against poverty, then against physical illness, it is
impossible to do justice in a short article. Even a longer biography is
inadequate, for Stevenson's spirit, not the incidents of his life, is the
important thing; and the spirit has no biographer. Though he had written
much better work earlier, he first gained fame by his _Treasure Island_
(1883), an absorbing story of pirates and of a hunt for buried gold. _Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_ (1886) is a profound ethical parable, in which,
however, Stevenson leaves the psychology and the minute analysis of
character to his readers, and makes the story the chief thing in his novel.
_Kidnapped_ (1886), _The Master of Ballantrae_ (1889), and _David Balfour_
(1893) are novels of adventure, giving us vivid pictures of Scotch life.
Two romances left unfinished by his early death in Samoa are _The Weir of
Hermiston_ and _St. Ives_. The latter was finished by Quiller-Couch in
1897; the former is happily just as Stevenson left it, and