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Collected works > Edinburgh edition, 1894-98 - Works of Robert Louis Stevenson > Volume 11, 1895 - Miscellanies, Volume III

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THE ENGLISH ADMIRALS
in a quaver of sensibility or a flush of righteous
common-sense. The man who wished to make the
ballads of his country coveted a small matter com-
pared to what Richard Greenville accomplished. I
wonder how many people have been inspired by this
mad story, and how many battles have been actually
won for England in the spirit thus engendered. It
is only with a measure of habitual foolhardiness that
you can be sure, in the common run of men, of
courage on a reasonable occasion. An army or a
fleet, if it is not led by quixotic fancies, will not be
led far by terror of the Provost- Marshal. Even
German warfare, in addition to maps and telegraphs,
is not above employing the Wacht am Rhein. Nor
is it only in the profession of arms that such stories
may do good to a man. In this desperate and
gleeful fighting, whether it is Greenville or Benbow,
Hawke or Nelson, who flies his colours in the ship,
we see men brought to the test and giving proof of
what we call heroic feehng. Prosperous humani-
tarians tell me, in my club smoking-room, that they
are a prey to prodigious heroic feelings, and that it
costs them more nobility of soul to do nothing in
particular, than would carry on all the wars, by sea
or land, of bellicose humanity. It may very well be
so, and yet not touch the point in question. For
what I desire is to see some of this nobility brought
face to face with me in an inspiriting achievement.
A man may talk smoothly over a cigar in my club
smoking-room from now to the Day of Judgment,
without adding anything to mankind's treasury of
138

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Early editions of Robert Louis Stevenson > Collected works > Works of Robert Louis Stevenson > Miscellanies, Volume III > (154) Page 138
(154) Page 138
Permanent URLhttps://digital.nls.uk/90458616
Volume 11, 1895 - Miscellanies, Volume III
DescriptionContents: Virginibus Puerisque; Later Essays: Fontainbleau, Realism*, Style*, Morality*, Books which have Influenced Me, Day after Tomorrow*, Letter to a Young Gentleman, Pulvis, Christmas Sermon, Damien.
ShelfmarkHall.275.a
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Dates / events: 1895 [Date published]
Subject / content: Essays
Anthologies
Edinburgh edition, 1894-98 - Works of Robert Louis Stevenson
DescriptionEdinburgh edition. Edinburgh: Printed by T. and A. Constable for Longmans Green and Co, 1894-98. [28 volumes in total, only some of which NLS has digitised.]
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Form / genre: Written and printed matter > Books
Dates / events: 1894-1898 [Date printed]
Places: Europe > United Kingdom > Scotland > Edinburgh > Edinburgh (inhabited place) [Place printed]
Subject / content: Collected works
Person / organisation: Chatto & Windus (Firm) [Distributor]
Stevenson, Robert Louis, 1850-1894 [Author]
T. and A. Constable [Printer]
Longmans, Green, and Co. [Publisher]
Colvin, Sidney, 1845-1927 [Editor]
Collected works
Early editions of Robert Louis Stevenson
DescriptionFull text versions of early editions of works by Robert Louis Stevenson. Includes 'Kidnapped', 'The Master of Ballantrae' and other well-known novels, as well as 'Prince Otto', 'Dynamiter' and 'St Ives'. Also early British and American book editions, serialisations of novels in newspapers and literary magazines, and essays by Stevenson.
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Person / organisation: Stevenson, Robert Louis, 1850-1894 [Author]
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