" This turn of mind it is that
causes his work occasionally to seem somewhat freakish. Thus, in
the fogs and horrors of London, he plays at being an Arabian tale-
teller, and his "New Arabian Nights" are a new kind of romanticism--
Oriental, freakish, like the work of a changeling. Indeed, this
curious genius, springing from a family of Scottish engineers,
resembles nothing so much as one of the fairy children, whom the
ladies of Queen Proserpina's court used to leave in the cradles of
Border keeps or of peasants' cottages. Of the Scot he has little
but the power of touching us with a sense of the supernatural, and a
decided habit of moralising; for no Scot of genius has been more
austere with Robert Burns. On the other hand, one element of Mr.
Stevenson's ethical disquisitions is derived from his dramatic
habit. His optimism, his gay courage, his habit of accepting the
world as very well worth living in and looking at, persuaded one of
his critics that he was a hard-hearted young athlete of iron frame.
Now, of the athlete he has nothing but his love of the open air: it
is the eternal child that drives him to seek adventures and to
sojourn among beach-combers and savages. Thus, an admiring but far
from optimistic critic may doubt whether Mr. Stevenson's content
with the world is not "only his fun," as Lamb said of Coleridge's
preaching; whether he is but playing at being the happy warrior in
life; whether he is not acting that part, himself to himself.
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