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Robert Louis Stevenson-Part6_Alexander H.Japp(1839-1905)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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WITH A DONKEY THROUGH THE CEVENNES - seen yet more, perhaps, in a

certain account of a voyage to America as a steerage passenger),



lofty mountain-tops, with stronger air, and strange and novel

surroundings. He would fain, like Ulysses, be at home in foreign



lands, making acquaintance with outlying races, with

"Cities of men,



And manners, climates, councils, governments:

Myself not least, but honoured of them all,



Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy."

If he could not move about as he would, he would invent, make fancy



serve him instead of experience. We thus owe something to the

staying and restraining forces in him, and a wise "laying-to" - for



his works, which are, in large part, finely-healthy, objective, and

in almost everything unlike the work of an invalid, yet, in some



degree, were but the devices to beguile the burdens of an invalid's

days. Instead of remaining in our climate, it might be, to lie



listless and helpless half the day, with no companion but his own

thoughts and fancies (not always so pleasant either, if, like



Frankenstein's monster, or, better still like the imp in the bottle

in the ARABIAN NIGHTS, you cannot, once for all liberate them, and



set them adrift on their own charges to visit other people), he

made a home in the sweeter air and more steady climate of the South



Pacific, where, under the Southern Cross, he could safely and

beneficially be as active as he would be involuntarily idle at



home, or work only under pressure of hampering conditions. That

was surely an illustration of the true "laying-to" with an



unaffectedly brave, bright resolution in it.

CHAPTER VI - SOME EARLIER LETTERS



CARLYLE was wont to say that, next to a faithfulportrait, familiar

letters were the best medium to reveal a man. The letters must



have been written with no idea of being used for this end, however

- free, artless, the unstudied self-revealings of mind and heart.



Now, these letters of R. L. Stevenson, written to his friends in

England, have a vast value in this way - they reveal the man -



reveal him in his strength and his weakness - his ready gift in

pleasing and adapting himself to those with whom he corresponded,



and his great power at once of adapting himself to his

circumstances and of humorously rising superior to them. When he



was ill and almost penniless in San Francisco, he could give Mr

Colvin this account of his daily routine:



"Any time between eight and half-past nine in the morning a slender

gentleman in an ulster, with a volume buttoned into the breast of



it, maybe observed leaving No. 608 Bush and descending Powell with

an active step. The gentleman is R. L. Stevenson; the volume



relates to Benjamin Franklin, on whom he meditates one of his

charming essays. He descends Powell, crosses Market, and descends



in Sixth on a branch of the original Pine Street Coffee-House, no

less. . . . He seats himself at a table covered with waxcloth, and



a pampered menial of High-Dutch extraction, and, indeed, as yet

only partially extracted, lays before him a cup of coffee, a roll,



and a pat of butter, all, to quote the deity, very good. A while

ago, and R. L. Stevenson used to find the supply of butter



insufficient; but he has now learned the art to exactitude, and

butter and roll expire at the same moment. For this rejection he



pays ten cents, or fivepence sterling.

"Half an hour later, the inhabitants of Bush Street observed the



same slender gentleman armed, like George Washington, with his

little hatchet, splitting kindling, and breaking coal for his fire.



He does this quasi-publicly upon the window-sill; but this is not

to be attributed to any love of notoriety, though he is indeed vain



of his prowess with the hatchet (which he persists in calling an

axe), and daily surprised at the perpetuation of his fingers. The



reason is this: That the sill is a strong supporting beam, and

that blows of the same emphasis in other parts of his room might



knock the entire shanty into hell. Thenceforth, for from three

hours, he is engaged darkly with an ink-bottle. Yet he is not



blacking his boots, for the only pair that he possesses are




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