" One of the "crawlers" was
"Thrawn Janet"; after "Wandering Willie's Tale" (but certainly _after_
it), to my taste, it seems the most wonderful story of the "supernatural"
in our language.
Mr. Stevenson had an infinite pleasure in Boisgobey, Montepin, and, of
course, Gaboriau. There was nothing of the "cultured person" about him.
Concerning a novel dear to culture, he said that he would die by my side,
in the last ditch, proclaiming it the worst fiction in the world. I make
haste to add that I have only known two men of letters as free as Mr.
Stevenson, not only from literary jealousy, but from the writer's
natural, if exaggerated, distaste for work which, though in his own line,
is very different in aim and method from his own. I do not remember
another case in which he dispraised any book. I do remember his
observations on a novel then and now very popular, but not to his taste,
nor, indeed, by any means, impeccable, though stirring; his censure and
praise were both just. From his occasional fine efforts, the author of
this romance, he said, should have cleared away acres of brushwood, of
ineffectual matter. It was so, no doubt, as the writer spoken of would
be ready to acknowledge. But he was an improviser of genius, and Mr.
Stevenson was a conscious artist.
Of course we did by no means always agree in literary estimates; no two
people do. But when certain works--in his line in one way--were stupidly
set up as rivals of his, the person who was most irritated was not he,
but his equally magnanimous contemporary.
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