Essays in the Art of Writing

something too of the obsolete soldier of fortune, with the cocked and feathered hat, worn audaciously on one side. There was also a touch of the elfin, the uncann

ld. His buoyant optimism was based on a chronic experience of physical pain, for pessimists like Schopenhauer are usually men in comfortable circumstances, and of excellent bodily health. His courage and cheerfulness under de

it. As his romances have brought pleasure to thousands of readers, so the spectacle of his cheerful march through the Valley of the Shadow of Death is a constant source of comfort and inspiration. One feels ashamed of cowardice and petty irritation after witnes

er unusual combination

s being marked in his

oft-quoted sonnet by

ves a vivi

hin-chested, sl

d weak-fingere

curved of beak, and

ch-tinted, muta

es radiant w

brilliant and

e and rare, wit

impudence,

lvet, light i

t generous, st

oet, lover an

el, just a st

, of Hamlet

of the Short

, in their solid health. Fresh air is often better for the soul than the swinging of the priest's censer. At a time when the school of Zola was at its climax, Stevenson opened the windows and let in the

essentially religious. A man's letters are often a truer picture of his mind than a photograph; and when these epistles are directed not to men and women, but to the Supreme Intelligence, they form a real revelation

us to perform them with laughter and kind faces, let cheerfulness abound with industry. Give us to go blithely on our busine