Collected works > Edinburgh edition, 1894-98 - Works of Robert Louis Stevenson > Volume 5, 1895 - Miscellanies, Volume II

PREFACE BY WAY OF CRITICISM
These studies are collected from the monthly press. One
appeared in the New Quarterly, one in Macmillati'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 pro-
duction. 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
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