ave been--the
same, or different from what it was with those that were there? His work
is throughout at bottom a series of problems that almost all trace to
this root, directly or indirectly. "There, but for the grace of God,
goes John Bradford," said the famous Puritan on seeing a felon led to
execution; so with Stevenson. Hence his fondness for tramps, for scamps
(he even bestowed special attention and pains on Villon, the poet-scamp);
he was rather impatient with poor Thoreau, because he was a purist
solitary, and had too little of vice, and, as Stevenson held, narrow in
sympathy, and too self-satisfied, and bent only on self-improvement. He
held a brief for the honest villain, and leaned to him brotherly. Even
the anecdotes he most prizes have a fine look this way--a hunger for
completion in achievement, even in the violation of fine humane feeling
or morality, and all the time a sense of submission to God's will.
"Doctor," said the dying gravedigger in _Old Mortality_, "I hae laid
three hunner an' fower score in that kirkyaird, an' had it been His
wull," indicating Heaven, "I wad hae likeit weel to hae made oot the
fower hunner." That took Stevenson. Listen to what Mr Edmond Gosse
tells of his talk, when he found him in a private hotel in Finsbury
Circus, London, ready to be put on board a steamer for America, on 21st
August, 1887:

"It was church time, and there was some talk of my witnessing his
will, which I could not do because there could be found no other
reputable witness, the whole crew of the hotel being at church.
'This,' he said, 'is the way in which our valuable city hotels--packed
no doubt with gems and jewellery--are deserted on a Sunday morning.
Some bold piratical fellow, defying the spirit of Sabbatarianism,
might make a handsome revenue by sacking the derelict hotels between
the hours of ten and twelve. One hotel a week would enable such a man
to retire in course of a year. A mask might perhaps be worn for the
mere fancy of the thing, and to terrify kitchen-maids, but no real
disguise would be needful.'"

I would rather agree with Mr Chesterton than with Mr Zangwill here:

"Stevenson's enormous capacity for joy flowed directly out of his
profoundly religious temperament. He conceived himself as an
unimportant guest at one eternal and uproarious banquet, and instead
of grumbling at the soup, he accepted it with careless gratitude. . .
. H