In the Scotchman, Robert Louis Stevenson, this jaunty juvenility, this
rich enjoyment of bloody buccaneers and profane sea-dogs, is carried to
far greater lengths, and the great juvenile public of England and
America, both young and old, rises up and calls him blessed.
There is, however, a vast difference between Tegner's youthfulness and
that of Stevenson. The latter (in spite of the charm of his style, which
is irresistible) strikes me as a sort of mediaeval survival--a boyish
feudal sixteenth-century spirit astray in the nineteenth. I am by no
means insensible to the fascination of his capricious confidences, his
beautiful insight, and his exquisite humor; but for all that, he always
leaves me with a vague regret at his whimsicality and a certain lack of
robustness in his intellectual equipment. In Tegner, on the other hand,
it is primarily the man who is impressive; and the author is interesting
as the revelation of the man. He has no literary airs and graces, but
speaks with a splendid authority, _e plena pectore_, from the fulness of
his manly conviction.
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