all young men in the Virginibus Puerisque. The light touch, the full feeling, the deep thought, the gay and gallant aspect, make the books as bright as youth itself. He could creep into a child's mind; but the thoughts and feelings of these books were those of a man who was ever young at heart, and so they are fitted to be for ever the vade-mecum of the young man. Who has entered into the motives for a young man's laziness like Stevenson? Who has expressed so well the haunting sense of inutility which besets almost all men on entering life? Yet how playfully and how cheeringly he diagnoses the nostalgia!
These bright books, full of the most ebullient life, were written by a man gazing steadfastly into the eyes of Death. Perhaps it was the insistent need for getting rid of morbid thoughts that led Stevenson to dwell on the active life in the open air. But what a dauntless courage that could disregard the perpetual menace of his grisly visitant and play so well the part of the young man into whose calculations Death enters not! His were indeed brave words, and their courage is an inspiration.
