第54章 MR CHRISTIE MURRAY'S IMPRESSIONS(1)

MR CHRISTIE MURRAY, writing as "Merlin" in our handbook in the REFEREE at the time, thus disposed of some of the points just dealt with by us:

"Here is libel on a large scale, and I have purposely refrained from approaching it until I could show my readers something of the spirit in which the whole attack is conceived.'If he wanted a thing he went after it with an entire contempt for consequences.

For these, indeed, the Shorter Catechist was ever prepared to answer; so that whether he did well or ill, he was safe to come out unabashed and cheerful.' Now if Mr Henley does not mean that for the very express picture of a rascal without a conscience he has been most strangely infelicitous in his choice of terms, and he is one of those who make so strong a profession of duty towards mere vocables that we are obliged to take him AU PIED DE LA LETTRE.A man who goes after whatever he wants with an entire contempt of consequences is a scoundrel, and the man who emerges from such an enterprise unabashed and cheerful, whatever his conduct may have been, and justifies himself on the principles of the Shorter Catechism, is a hypocrite to boot.This is not the report we have of Robert Louis Stevenson from most of those who knew him.It is a most grave and dreadful accusation, and it is not minimised by Mr Henley's acknowledgment that Stevenson was a good fellow.We all know the air of false candour which lends a disputant so much advantage in debate.In Victor Hugo's tremendous indictment of Napoleon le Petit we remember the telling allowance for fine horsemanship.It spreads an air of impartiality over the most mordant of Hugo's pages.It is meant to do that.An insignificant praise is meant to show how a whole Niagara of blame is poured on the victim of invective in all sincerity, and even with a touch of reluctance.

"Mr Henley, despite his absurdities of ''Tis' and 'it were,' is a fairly competent literary craftsman, and he is quite gifted enough to make a plain man's plain meaning an evident thing if he chose to do it.But if for the friend for whom 'first and last he did share' he can only show us the figure of one 'who was at bottom an excellent fellow,' and who had 'an entire contempt' for the consequences of his own acts, he presents a picture which can only purposely be obscured....

"All I know of Robert Louis Stevenson I have learned from his books, and from one unexpected impromptu letter which he wrote to me years ago in friendly recognition of my own work.I add the testimonies of friends who may have been of less actual service to him than Mr Henley, but who surely loved him better and more lastingly.These do not represent him as the victim of an overweening personal vanity, nor as a person reckless of the consequences of his own acts, nor as a Pecksniff who consoled himself for moral failure out of the Shorter Catechism.The books and the friends amongst them show me an erratic yet lovable personality, a man of devotion and courage, a loyal, charming, and rather irresponsible person whose very slight faults were counter-

balanced many times over by very solid virtues....

"To put the thing flatly, it is not a heroism to cling to mere existence.The basest of us can do that.But it is a heroism to maintain an equable and unbroken cheerfulness in the face of death.

For my own part, I never bowed at the literary shrine Mr Henley and his friends were at so great pains to rear.I am not disposed to think more loftily than I ever thought of their idol.But the Man - the Man was made of enduring valour and childlike charm, and these will keep him alive when his detractors are dead and buried."