charge can not be made against
his representative fiction: "Prince Otto" stands alone in this
respect, and that captivating, comparatively early romance,
confessedly written under the influence of Meredith, is a
delicious literary experiment rather than a deeply-felt piece of
life. Perhaps the central gift of all is that for character--is
it, in truth, not the central gift for any weaver of fiction? So
we thought in studying Dickens. Stevenson's creations wear the
habit of life, yet with more than life's grace of carriage; they
are seen picturesquely without, but also psychologically within.
In a marvelous portrayal like that of John Silver in "Treasure
Island" the result is a composite of what we see and what we
shudderingly guess: eye and mind are satisfied alike. Even in a
mere sketch, such as that of the blind beggar at the opening of
the same romance, with the tap-tap of his stick to announce his
coming, we get a remarkable example of effect secured by an
economy of details; that tap-tapping gets on your nerves, you
never forget it. It seems like the memory of a childhood terror
on the novelist's part. Throughout his fiction this chemic union
of fact and the higher fact that is of the imagination marks his
work. The smell of the heather is in our nostrils as we watch
Allan's flight, and looking on at the fight in the round-house,
there is a physical impression of the stuffiness of the place;
you smell as well as see it. Or for quite another key, take the
night duel in "The Master of Ballantrae." You cannot think of it
without feeling the bite of the bleak air; once more the twinkle
of the candles makes the scene flicker before you ere it vanish
into memory-land. Again, how you know that sea-coast site in the
opening of "The Pavilion on the Links"--shiver at the "sly
innuendoes of the place"! Think how much the map in "Treasure
Island" adds to the credibility of the thing. It is the
believableness of Stevenson's atmospheres that prepare the
reader for any marvels enacted in them. Gross, present-day,
matter-of-fact London makes Dr. Jekyll and his worser half of
flesh-and-blood credence. Few novelists of any race have beaten
this wandering Scot in the power of representing character and
envisaging it: and there can hardly be successful
characterization without this allied power of creating
atmosphere.

Nothing is falser than to find him imitative in his
representative work. There may be a suspicion of made-to-ord