and it is interesting to recall the opinion he held on the permanency of Stevenson's fame when he was reviewing Mr. Graham Balfour's biography, twelve years ago: "It is said in some quarters that Stevenson has been over-praised, that a reaction has set in against him, that he will not fascinate the next generation. It matters not one rap whether he does or not to any one who has perceived his absolute solidity and his eternal use to mankind. . . . Stevenson will win, not because he has friends or admirers or the approval of the public or the assent of the æsthetes. He will win because he is right a word of great practical import which needs to be re-discovered. He may or may not be eclipsed for a time; it would be a truer way of putting it to say that the public may or may not be eclipsed for a time. . . . The idea that a great literary man who has said something novel and important to mankind can vanish suddenly and finally is ridiculous. The pessimists who believe it are people who could believe that the sun is destroyed for ever every time it sinks in the west. Nothing is lost in the magnificent economy of existence; the sun returns, the flowers return, the literary fashions return. If life is a continual parting, it is also a continual heaven of reconciliation."
But Stevenson's fame was never in danger of eclipse; a new generation has risen since he finished his work, and the interest in his books and in his personality was never stronger than it is now. In the Elegy in his "Robert Louis Stevenson and Other Poems" (John Lane), Mr. Richard Le Gallienne said the last word on this score:
When at the mention of your heartfelt name
Shall shake the head, and men, oblivious, say:
'We know him not, this master, nor his fame.'
Not for so swift forgetfulness you wrought,
Day upon day, with rapt, fastidious pen,
Turning, like precious stones, with anxious thought,
This word and that again and yet again,
Seeking to match its meaning with the world;
Nor to the morning stars gave ears attent,
That you, indeed, might ever dare to be
With other praise than immortality Unworthily content.
Not while a boy still whistles on the earth,
Not while a single human heart beats true,
Not while Love lasts, and Honour, and the Brave,
Has earth a grave, O well-beloved, for you!"
Wyman & Sons Ltd., Printers, London and Reading.
