fe and death; an article is bread,
and to calm him and collect what remains of weak, scattered thought, he
must drink. The woman cannot understand that caste and race separate them;
and the damp air of spent desire, and the grey and falling leaves of her
illusions fill her life's sky. Nor is there any hope for her until the
husband unties the awful knot by suicide.

I will state frankly that Mr. R.L. Stevenson never wrote a line that failed
to delight me; but he never wrote a book. You arrive at a strangely just
estimate of a writer's worth by the mere question: "What is he the author
of?" for every writer whose work is destined to live is the author of one
book that outshines the other, and, in popular imagination, epitomises his
talent and position. What is Shakespeare the author of? What is Milton the
author of? What is Fielding the author of? What is Byron the author of?
What is Carlyle the author of? What is Thackeray the author of? What is
Zola the author of? What is Mr. Swinburne the author of? Mr. Stevenson is
the author of shall I say, "Treasure Island," or what?

I think of Mr. Stevenson as a consumptive youth weaving garlands of sad
flowers with pale, weak hands, or leaning to a large plate-glass window,
and scratching thereon exquisite profiles with a diamond pencil.

I do not care to speak of great ideas, for I am unable to see how an idea
can exist, at all events can be great out of language; an allusion to Mr.
Stevenson's verbal expression will perhaps make my meaning clear. His
periods are fresh and bright, rhythmical in sound, and perfect realizations
of their sense; in reading you often think that never before was such
definiteness united to such poetry of expression; every page and every
sentence rings of its individuality. Mr. Stevenson's style is over smart,
well-dressed, shall I say, like a young man walking in the Burlington
Arcade? Yes, I will say so, but, I will add, the most gentlemanly young man
that ever walked in the Burlington. Mr. Stevenson is competent to
understand any thought that might be presented to him, but if he were to
use it, it would instantly become neat, sharp, ornamental, light, and
graceful; and it would lose all its original richness and harmony. It is
not Mr. Stevenson's brain that prevents him from being a thinker, but his
style.

Another thing that strikes me in thinking of Stevenson (I pass over his
direct indebtedness to Edgar Poe, and his constant appropriation of h