Collected works > Edinburgh edition, 1894-98 - Works of Robert Louis Stevenson > Volume 1, 1894 - Miscellanies, Volume I

MEMORIES AND PORTRAITS
the author of the work in question has ever, in the
fleshly sense, gone questing after gold, it is probable
that both have ardently desired and fondly imagined
the details of such a life in youthful day-dreams ;
and the author, counting upon that, and well aware
(cunning and low-minded man !) that this class of
interest, having been frequently treated, finds a
readily accessible and beaten road to the sympathies
of the reader, addressed himself throughout to the
building up and circumstantiation of this boyish
dream. Character to the boy is a sealed book ; for
him, a pirate is a beard, a pair of wide trousers and
a liberal complement of pistols. The author, for the
sake of circumstantiation and because he was himself
more or less grown up, admitted character, within
certain limits, into his design ; but only within
certain limits. Had the same puppets figured in a
scheme of another sort, they had been drawn to very
diJfferent purpose ; for in this elementary novel of
adventure, the characters need to be presented with
but one class of qualities — the warlike and formid-
able. So as they appear insidious in deceit and fatal
in the combat, they have served their end. Danger
is the matter with which this class of novel deals ;
fear, the passion with which it idly trifles ; and the
characters are portrayed only so far as they realise
the sense of danger and provoke the sympathy of
fear. To add more traits, to be too clever, to start
the hare of moral or intellectual interest while we
are running the fox of material interest, is not to
enrich but to stultify your tale. The stupid reader
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