hilarity, and alacrity as another man hath when he hath drunken a cup too much.'[1] Stevenson—not very like Cromwell in other respects—seemed to find excitement a necessity of existence. He speaks to a correspondent of the timidity of youth. 'I was,' he says, 'a particularly brave boy'—ready to plunge into rash adventures, but 'in fear of that strange blind machinery in which I stood. I fear life still,' he adds, and 'that terror for an adventurer like myself is one of the chief joys of living.' Terror keeps one wide awake and highly strung. Inextinguishable playfulness, with extraordinary quickness of sympathy; an impulsiveness which means accessibility to every generous and heroic nature; and a brave heart in a feeble body, ought to be, as they are, most fascinating qualities. But it is true that they imply a limitation. So versatile a nature, glancing off at every contact, absorbed for the moment by every impulse, has not much time for listening to the 'Cherub Contemplation.' Stevenson turns from 'the painful aspects of life,' not from the cowardice which refuses to look evils in the face, but from the courage which manages to treat them as a
- ↑ A similar remark was made about Ninon de l'Enclos. They make a queer trio.
