Page:Revolution and Other Essays.djvu/249

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has caught up in wondrous songs for the future centuries to sing.

If the nineteenth century is the century of the Hooligan, then is Kipling the voice of the Hooligan as surely as he is the voice of the nineteenth century. Who is more representative? Is "David Harum" more representative of the nineteenth century? Is Mary Johnston, Charles Major, or Winston Churchill? Is Bret Harte? William Dean Howells? Gilbert Parker? Who of them all is as essentially representative of nineteenth- century life? When Kipling is forgotten, will Robert Louis Stevenson be remembered for his "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," his "Kidnapped," and his "David Balfour"? Not so. His "Treasure Island" will be a classic, to go down with "Robinson Crusoe," "Through the Looking Glass," and "The Jungle Books." He will be remembered for his essays, for his letters, for his philosophy of life, for himself. He will be the well beloved, as he has been the well beloved. But his will be another claim upon posterity than what we are considering. For each epoch has its singer. As Scott sang the swan song of chivalry and Dickens the burgher-fear of the rising merchant class, so