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Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson
Scanned and proofed by David Price, [email protected]

Familiar Studies of Men and Books

PREFACE BY WAY OF CRITICISM.

THESE studies are collected from the monthly press. One appeared in
the NEW QUARTERLY, one in MACMILLAN'S, and the rest in the
CORNHILL MAGAZINE. To the CORNHILL I owe a double debt of
thanks; first, that I was received there in the very best society, and
under the eye of the very best of editors; and second, that the
proprietors have allowed me to republish so considerable an amount of
copy.
These nine worthies have been brought together from many different
ages and countries. Not the most erudite of men could be perfectly
prepared to deal with so many and such various sides of human life and
manners. To pass a true judgment upon Knox and Burns implies a
grasp upon the very deepest strain of thought in Scotland, - a country
far more essentially different from England than many parts of America;
for, in a sense, the first of these men re-created Scotland, and the
second is its most essentially national production. To treat fitly of Hugo
and Villon would involve yet wider knowledge, not only of a country
foreign to the author by race, history, and religion, but of the growth
and liberties of art. Of the two Americans, Whitman and Thoreau, each
is the type of something not so much realised as widely sought after
among the late generations of their countrymen; and to see them clearly

in a nice relation to the society that brought them forth, an author
would require a large habit of life among modern Americans. As for
Yoshida, I have already disclaimed responsibility; it was but my hand
that held the pen.
In truth, these are but the readings of a literary vagrant. One book led to
another, one study to another. The first was published with trepidation.
Since no bones were broken, the second was launched with greater
confidence. So, by insensible degrees, a young man of our generation
acquires, in his own eyes, a kind of roving judicial commission through
the ages; and, having once escaped the perils of the Freemans and the
Furnivalls, sets himself up to right the wrongs of universal history and
criticism. Now, it is one thing to write with enjoyment on a subject
while the story is hot in your mind from recent reading, coloured with
recent prejudice; and it is quite another business to put these writings
coldly forth again in a bound volume. We are most of us attached to
our opinions; that is one of the "natural affections" of which we hear so
much in youth; but few of us are altogether free from paralysing doubts
and scruples. For my part, I have a small idea of the degree of accuracy
possible to man, and I feel sure these studies teem with error. One and
all were written with genuine interest in the subject; many, however,
have been conceived and finished with imperfect knowledge; and all
have lain, from beginning to end, under the disadvantages inherent in
this style of writing.
Of these disadvantages a word must here be said. The writer of short
studies, having to condense in a few pages the events of a whole
lifetime, and the effect on his own mind of many various volumes, is
bound, above all things, to make that condensation logical and striking.
For the only justification of his writing at all is that he shall present a
brief, reasoned, and memorable view. By the necessity of the case, all
the more neutral circumstances are omitted from his narrative; and that
of itself, by the negative exaggeration of which I have spoken in the
text, lends to the matter in hand a certain false and specious glitter. By
the necessity of the case, again, he is forced to view his subject
throughout in a particular illumination, like a studio artifice. Like Hales
with Pepys, he must nearly break his sitter's neck to get the proper
shadows on the portrait. It is from one side only that he