They are as
insulting to the comic actor as they are to Michael Angelo, for the
truth and beauty of low comedy are as dignified, and require of the
artist the same primary passion for life for its own sake, as the truth
and beauty of The Divine Comedy. The doctrines are the outcome of an
Alexandrine age. After art has once learnt to draw its inspiration
directly from life and has produced some masterpieces, then imitations
begin to creep in. That Stevenson's doctrines tend to produce imitative
work is obvious. If the artist is a fisher of men, then we must examine
the works of those who have known how to bait their hooks: in
fiction,--De Foe, Fielding, Walter Scott, Dumas, Balzac.
To a study of these men, Stevenson had, as we have seen, devoted the
most plastic years of his life. The style and even the mannerisms of
each of them, he had trained himself to reproduce. One can almost write
their names across his pages and assign each as a presiding genius over
a share of his work. Not that Stevenson purloined or adopted in a mean
spirit, and out of vanity.
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