The name is absent

Spirit and Art of Robert Louis Stevenson 107
who lead complex human affairs and human struggles under-
stand this; to be only sometimes brave means sometimes to
compromise, and compromise always means trouble ; to com-
promise nothing is to be always on solid ground and at ease.
So if a man is merely looking for the easiest way, he should
be always entirely brave ; but a man who is always looking
for the easiest way has not enough manhood to be entirely
brave. Therefore, we must turn the proposition around:
the man who is entirely brave finds that he has hit upon the
easiest way. That was Stevenson: he was so brave that he
found the way easy—joyous and songful.

Gilbert Chesterton says : “Stevenson did not face his trou-
bles as a Stoic, he faced them as an Epicurean; . . . his res-
ignation can only be called an active and uproarious resigna-
tion. . . . Stevenson’s great ethical and philosophical value
lies in the fact that he realized this great paradox, that life
becomes more fascinating the darker it grows, that life is
worth living only in so far as it is difficult to live. He dis-
covered that a battle was more comforting than a truce.”

It was in this spirit that Stevenson met life and found its
meaning and stated that meaning in one sentence, which is
the key to his philosophy: “We do not, properly speaking,
love life at all, but living.” That sentence is from the essay
“Æs Triplex” (“Triple Brass”) in ^ilVirginibus Puerisque,"
an essay that every man and woman should read, because it
tells us how to meet death by being so occupied with living
that we have no time to fear death, or even to think about it.

It was to the advantage of this philosopher and his read-
ers that he who could live so bravely could also write
bravely, that he had a gift of expression as gaily confident,
as insouciant and gallant as his own courageous heart. In
Stevenson’s style, or styles,—for indeed he is a man of many
styles,—there is a special fulfilment of the French definition

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