Show STUDENT LIFE ®$lork£ of Robert Houts Before undertaking to form an unbiased opinion of an author’s works it seems reasonable that some thought be given to a study of his personal life and tempera- If style is but an expression of personality this is not only reasonable but necessary Moreover we owe this consideration to ourselves and to the author in order to avoid being partial in our judgments To study a writer in this way gives more reality to his style You become better acquainted with him as a man and consequently you take up his works with more interest and truer insight Robert Louis Stevenson was a native of bonnie Scotland He was born during the middle of the nineteenth century and could trace his Scotch ancestry for two or three generations back A number of his works are written in the homely Scotch dialect of which he ment was master He was to have been an engineer but happily for us and the world in general his literary tendencies refused to be suppressed He was as one writer says of him “incur 105 tebenson ably literary” As a child he was a lover of books impulsive full of fire and enthusiasm Once im- bued with an idea his next step was to put it into action and that with his whole soul This intensity cf purpose and feeling characterized him as a man It is felt in all of his writings in fact it is the mainspring which gives elasticity and breeziness to his style Add to this intensity a cheerfulness cf spirit a sincere directness and a certain lightness of touch and the result is so charming that it wins you whether you will or not There is but one variety cf his works which lacks some of these qualities and that is his essays In a number of those in “Memories and Portraits” his style departs from its usual freedom and becomes somewhat stilted as if he were not perfectly familiar with his subject or too reserved in expressing himself In “ Ihran Janet” and “The Merry Men” two of his best short dialect stories we have excellent The latter gives us local coloring a strong picture of Scotch peasant ‘ |