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Robert Louis Stevenson-Part26_Alexander H.Japp(1839-1905)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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fresh and new and accurate, then the TIMES could not have got, even

if it had sought, an injunction against his publishers and him; and



there would have been no necessity that he should pad out other and

later speeches by just a little whining over what was entirely due



to his own disregard of good advice, his own neglect - his own

fault - a neglect and a fault showing determination not to revise



where revision in justice to his subject's own free and frank

acknowledgments made it most essential and necessary.



Mr Justice North gave his decision against Lord Rosebery and his

publishers, while the Lords of Appeal went in his favour; but the



House of Lords reaffirmed the decision of Mr Justice North and

granted a perpetualinjunction against this book. The copyright in



his speech is Lord Rosebery's, but the copyright in the TIMES'

report is the TIMES'. You see one of the ideas underlying the law



is that no manner of speech is quite perfect as the man speaks it,

or is beyond revision, improvement, or extension, and, if there is



but one VERBATIM report, as was the case of some of these speeches

and addresses, then it is incumbent on the author, if he wishes to



preserve his copyright, to revise and correct his speeches and

addresses, so as to make them at least in details so far differ



from the reported form. This thing ought Lord Rosebery to have

done, on ethical and literary GROUNDS, not to speak of legal and



self-interested grounds; and I, for one, who from the first held

exactly the view the House of Lords has affirmed, do confess that I



have no sympathy for Lord Rosebery, since he had before him the

suggestion and the materials for as substantial alterations and



additions from my own hands, with as much more for other portions

of his book, had he informed me of his appreciation, as would have



saved him and his book from such a sadly ironical fate as has

overtaken him and it.



From the whole business - since "free, gratis, for nothing," I

offered him as good advice as any lawyer in the three kingdoms



could have done for large payment, and since he never deemed it

worth while, even to tell me the results of his reference to



FAMILIAR STUDIES, I here and now say deliberately that his conduct

to me was scarcely so courteous and grateful and graceful as it



might have been. How different - very different - the way in which

the late R. L. Stevenson rewarded me for a literary service no whit



greater or more essentially valuable to him than this service

rendered to Lord Rosebery might have been to him.



This chapter would most probably not have been printed, had not Mr

Coates re-issued the inadequate and most misleading paragraph about



Mr Stevenson and style in his Lord Rosebery's LIFE AND SPEECHES

exactly as it was before, thus perpetuating at once the error and



the wrong, in spite of all my trouble, warnings, and protests. It

is a tragicomedy, if not a farce altogether, considering who are



the principal actors in it. And let those who have copies of the

queer prohibited book cherish them and thank me; for that I do by



this give a new interest and value to it as a curiosity, law-

inhibited, if not as high and conscientiousliterature - which it



is not.

I remember very well about the time Lord Rosebery spoke on Burns,



and Stevenson, and London, that certain London papers spoke of his

deliverances as indicating more knowledge - fuller and exacter



knowledge - of all these subjects than the greatest professed

experts possessed. That is their extravagant and most reckless



way, especially if the person spoken about is a "great politician"

or a man of rank. They think they are safe with such superlatives



applied to a brilliant and clever peer (with large estates and many

interests), and an ex-Prime Minister! But literature is a



republic, and it must here be said, though all unwillingly, that

Lord Rosebery is but an amateur - a superficial though a clever



amateur after all, and their extravagances do not change the fact.

I declare him an amateur in Burns' literature and study because of



what I have said elsewhere, and there are many points to add to

that if need were. I have proved above from his own words that he



was crassly and unpardonably ignorant of some of the most important

points in R. L. Stevenson's development when he delivered that



address in Edinburgh on Stevenson - a thing very, very pardonable -




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