ιθ8 Six Nineteenth-Century Fictionists
of style: “The style is the man.” The light and variable
quality of the man, the versatility, the grace and ease, and
withal the combination of sobriety and verve, are all re-
flected in his literary styles.
This “Æs Triplex,” like many other things he wrote, is
fine literature both because it says something important and
because it says it in a rarely attractive manner. This and
many other essays of Stevenson fulfil that conception of lit-
erature which he expounded in his essay on “Walt Whit-
man” : “Any conviction, even if it be a whole system or a
whole religion, must pass into a condition of commonplace,
or postulate, before it becomes fully operative. Strange ex-
cursions and high-flying theories may interest, but they can-
not rule behavior. . . . It is not by forcing him on from
one subject to another that the man will be effectually re-
newed. He cannot be made to believe anything; but he can
be made to see that he has always believed. . . . If any
ideal is possible, it must be already in the thoughts of the
people.”
Obviously on this theory of literature—and it is surely
an entirely correct theory—the literary form is extremely
important. For if the author says merely what is in the
subconscious thought of everybody, he must manifestly say
it better than most people can say it, in order that he may
bring it out of the subconsciousness into the active conscious-
ness as a principle of living. It is the author’s way of say-
ing a thing which suddenly makes us realize that we our-
selves have often vaguely thought the same thing, but never
before realized its significance because we never put it into
words.
Then Stevenson proceeds to say: “Whitman is alive to all
this; he sees that if the poet is to be of any help, he must
testify to the Iivableness of life.” So, according to Steven-