![]() ![]() ![]() HYDE he had shown himself a delicate marksman. Fifteen years ago his essays and fanciful books of travel were treasured by a small and discerning company of admirers long before he chanced to fell the British public with TREASURE ISLAND and DR. His fame has spread, as lasting fame is wont to do, from the few to the many. ![]() Nevertheless, without handling the prickly question of literary immortality, it is easy to recognise that the literary reputation of Robert Louis Stevenson is made of good stuff. But 'there is no antidote against the opium of time, which temporally considereth all things: our fathers find their graves in our short memories, and sadly tell us how we may be buried in our survivors.' Let us make sure that our sons will care for Homer before we pledge a more distant generation to a newer cult. It is one of the many vanities of criticism to promise immortality to the authors that it praises, to patronise a writer with the assurance that our great-grandchildren, whose time and tastes are thus frivolously mortgaged, will read his works with delight. Scanned and proofed by David Price, email a popular writer dies, the question it has become the fashion with a nervous generation to ask is the question, 'Will he live?' There was no idler question, none more hopelessly impossible and unprofitable to answer. ![]()
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