A book about a Scot, written by a Frenchman, translated
by an American in American, printed in Saxony and published in England is a rather explosive mixture. An explosion comes soon, when we are informed of the youthful Stevenson that he used to hide "gun in hand, await for antelope" in the suburbs of Edinburgh For sheer clotted nonsense in fact portions of the book are ineffable, and a blunder or an absurdity, like "the Honorable Mr. Gladstone" or some illiteracy (contributed by the translator) crops up on almost every other page. And yet, despite all blots, M. Carre'S Robert Louis Stevenson : The Frail Warrior (Noel Douglass 10s. 6d.) is by no means lacking in attraction. At least it has the French lightness of touch ; also it is honest. The author tries to paint the real Stevenson, not the Stevenson of Victorian legend, not "the chocolate angel," but the essential sensualist and poseur that the man was. True, in letters, he cultivated a very elegant pose, but in them you can almost always catch him arranging himself, even as on his Inland Voyage he must equip himself in "ecru cloth sandals and a red flannel sash caught with a knife." M M. Cane truly says, "it was part of his prestige to have round him a sophisticated and unusual environment." Still, he did write Weir of Hermiston.
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