The name is absent



Spirit and Art of Robert Louis Stevenson 115
“Treasure Island,” in which Mr. James says, “I have been
a child but I have never been on a quest for buried treasure.”
“Here is indeed a wilful paradox,” says Stevenson by way
of reply, “for if he has never been on a quest for buried
treasure, it can be demonstrated that he has never been a
child. There never was a child (unless Master James) but
has hunted gold and been a pirate and a military commander
and a bandit of the mountains.” Stevenson has taken the
things that boys think about and clothed them in a cultivated
art, thereby giving the boy, at one and the same time, what
the boy wants and what he
ought to have—a satisfaction of
his craving for adventure, and an unconscious education in
literary art. Of course, he has done something which the
boy never sees, ought not to see—he has related these
breathless adventures with a charming, half-suppressed
humor. The older reader catches the twinkle in Stevenson’s
eye while he is reciting these blood-curdling unrealities, but
the boy takes it all in solemn earnest. It is melodrama with
a smile.

Stevenson’s imagination was the gift of youth, but his
art was the product of almost incredible toil. And once
more the pedagogue mounts the rostrum. Stevenson has
written an “Apology for Idlers.” College students have
been known to find balm and solace in this essay, but they
who have soothed their souls with this have generally neg-
lected to read the essay called “A College Magazine” and
the series of essays entitled “The Art of Writing.” These
contain no counsel for idleness, but rather for sustained
labor such as only a brave and purposeful soul is capable of.
They tell the story of how Stevenson learned to write
through many years of harder toil than most day laborers
could endure.

With the most painstaking toil, he studied the masters of



More intriguing information

1. Assessing Economic Complexity with Input-Output Based Measures
2. Group cooperation, inclusion and disaffected pupils: some responses to informal learning in the music classroom
3. Gender stereotyping and wage discrimination among Italian graduates
4. Income Taxation when Markets are Incomplete
5. The name is absent
6. Life is an Adventure! An agent-based reconciliation of narrative and scientific worldviews
7. Synthesis and biological activity of α-galactosyl ceramide KRN7000 and galactosyl (α1→2) galactosyl ceramide
8. The name is absent
9. The name is absent
10. Altruism with Social Roots: An Emerging Literature
11. An Incentive System for Salmonella Control in the Pork Supply Chain
12. Constructing the Phylomemetic Tree Case of Study: Indonesian Tradition-Inspired Buildings
13. The name is absent
14. The name is absent
15. The name is absent
16. Tax Increment Financing for Optimal Open Space Preservation: an Economic Inquiry
17. The name is absent
18. A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK FOR EVALUATING SOCIAL WELFARE EFFECTS OF NEW AGRICULTURAL TECHNOLOGY
19. Developmental changes in the theta response system: a single sweep analysis
20. Climate Policy under Sustainable Discounted Utilitarianism