HKB
of harmony, proportion, and effect in their combination. It is amazing what nobility a mere truism is often found to possess when it is clad with a garment thus woven.
Stevenson had both these sensitive capabilities in a very high decree. His careful choice of epithet and name have even been criticised as lending to some of his narrative-writing an excessive air of deliberation. His daintiness of diction is best seen in his earlier work; thereafter his writing became more vigorous and direct, fitter for its later uses, but never unillumined by felicities that cause a thrill of pleasure to the reader. Of the value of words he had the acutest appreciation. Virginibus Puerisque, his first book of essays, is crowded with happy hits and subtle implications conveyed in a single word. 'We have all heard,' he says in one of these, 'of cities in South America built upon the side of fiery mountains, and how, even in this tremendous neighbourhood, the inhabitants are not a jot more impressed by the solemnity of mortal conditions than if they were delving gardens in the greenest corner of England.' You can feel the ground shake and see the volcano tower above you at that word 'tremendous neighbourhood.' Something of the same double reference to the original and acquired meanings of a word is to be found in such a phrase as 'sedate electrician,' for one who in a back office wields all the lights of a city; or in that description of one drawing near to death, who is spoken of as groping already with his hands 'on the face of the impassable.'
The likeness of this last word to a very different word, 'impassive,' is made to do good literary service in suggesting the sphinx-like image of death. Sometimes, as here, this subtle sense of double meanings almost leads to punning. In Across the Plains Stevenson narrates how a bet was transacted at a railway-station, and subsequently, he supposes, 'liquidated at the bar.' This is perhaps an instance of the excess of a virtue, but it is an excess to be found plentifully in the works of Milton.
His loving regard for words bears good fruit in his later and more stirring works. He has a quick ear and appreciation for live phrases on the lips of tramps, beach-combers, or Americans. In The Beach of Falesa the sea-captain who introduces the new trader to the South Pacific island where the scene of the story is laid, gives a brief description of the fate of the last dealer in copra. It may serve as a single illustration of volumes of racy, humorous, and imaginative slang;
'"Do you catch a bit of white there to the east'ard?" the captain continued. "That's your house. . . . When old Adams saw it, he took and shook me by the hand. 'I've dropped into a soft thing here,' says he. 'So you have,' says I. . . . Poor Johnny! I never saw him again but the once . . . and the next time we came round there he was dead and buried. I took and put up a bit of stick to him: 'John Adams, obit eighteen and sixty-eight. Go thou and do likewise.' I missed that man. I never could see much harm in Johnny."
'"What did he die of?" I inquired.
'"Some kind of sickness," says the captain. "It appears it took him sudden. Seems he got up in the night, and filled up on Pain-Killer and Kennedy's Discovery. No go--he was booked beyond Kennedy. Then he had tried to open a case of gin. No go again: not strong enough. . . . Poor John!"'