remarque upon his labor.  It is in a way unfortunate that Stevenson, early in his career, so frankly confessed to practising for his craft by the use of the best models:  it has led to the silly misinterpretation which sees in all his literary effort nothing but the skilful echo.  Such judgments remind us that criticism, which is intended to be a picture of another, is in reality a picture of oneself.  In his lehrjahre Stevenson “slogged at his trade,” beyond peradventure; but no man came to be more individually and independently himself.

It has been spoken against him, too, that he could not draw women:  here again he is quoted in his own despite and we see the possible disadvantage of a great writer’s correspondence being given to the world—­though not for more worlds than one would we miss the Letters.  It is quite true that he is chary of petticoats in his earlier work:  but when he reached “David Balfour” he drew an entrancing heroine; and the contrasted types of young girl and middle-aged woman in “Weir of Hermiston” offer eloquent testimonial to his increasing power in depicting the Eternal Feminine.  At the same time, it may be acknowledged that the gallery of female portraits is not like Scott’s for number and variety, nor like Thackeray’s for distinction and charm—­thick-hung with a delightful company whose eyes laugh level with our own, or, above us on the wall, look down with a starry challenge to our souls.  But those whom Stevenson has hung there are not to be coldly recalled.

Stevenson’s work offers itself remarkably as a test for the thought that all worthily modern romanticism must not lack in reality, in true observation, for success in its most daring flights.  Gone forever is that abuse of the romantic which substitutes effective lying for the vision which sees broadly enough to find beauty.  The latter-day realist will be found in the end to have permanently contributed this, a welcome legacy to our time, after its excesses and absurdities are forgotten.  Realism has taught romanticism to tell the truth, if it would succeed.  Stevenson is splendidly real, he loves to visualize fact, to be true both to the appearances of things and the thoughts of the mind.  He is aware that life is more than food—­that it is a subjective state quite as much as an objective reality.  He refers to himself more than once, half humorously, as a fellow whose forte lay in transcribing what was before him, to be seen and felt, tasted and heard.  This extremely modern denotement was a marked feature of his genius, often overlooked.  He had a desire to know all manner of men; he had the noble curiosity of Montaigne; this it was, along with his human sympathy, that led him to rough it in emigrant voyages and railroad trips across the plains.  It was this characteristic, unless I err, the lack of which in “Prince Otto” gives it a certain rococo air:  he was consciously fooling in it, and felt the need of a solidly mundane footing.  Truth to human nature in general, and