Robert Louis Stevenson

The part of life that he cares for most is youth, and the direct expression of the love of youth is the beginning and the end of his message. His appreciation of this delightful period amounts to a passion; and a passion, in the age in which we live, strikes us, on the whole, as a sufficient philosophy. It ought to satisfy Mr. Archer, and there are writers graver than Mr. Stevenson on whose behalf no such moral motive can be alleged. Mingled with his almost equal love of a literary surface it represents a real originality. This combination is the key-note of Mr. Stevenson’s faculty and the explanation of his perversities.