Lay Morals, and Other PapersStevenson, Robert Louis
Philosophy
Lay Morals, and Other Papers
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Essays; Short stories
up and down over a rolling heath; the wayfarers, with outstretched arms,
are already sunk to the knees over the brow of the nearest hill; they
have just passed a milestone with the cipher two; from overhead a great,
piled, summer cumulus, as of a slumberous summer afternoon, beshadows
them: two miles! it might be hundreds. In dealing with the Land of
Beulah the artist lags, in both parts, miserably behind the text, but in
the distant prospect of the Celestial City more than regains his own.
You will remember when Christian and Hopeful ‘with desire fell sick.’
‘Effect of the Sunbeams’ is the artist’s title. Against the sky, upon a
cliffy mountain, the radiant temple beams upon them over deep, subjacent
woods; they, behind a mound, as if seeking shelter from the splendour—one
prostrate on his face, one kneeling, and with hands ecstatically
lifted—yearn with passion after that immortal city. Turn the page, and
we behold them walking by the very shores of death; Heaven, from this
nigher view, has risen half-way to the zenith, and sheds a wider glory;
and the two pilgrims, dark against that brightness, walk and sing out of
the fulness of their hearts. No cut more thoroughly illustrates at once
the merit and the weakness of the artist. Each pilgrim sings with a book
in his grasp—a family Bible at the least for bigness; tomes so recklessly
enormous that our second, impulse is to laughter. And yet that is not
the first thought, nor perhaps the last. Something in the attitude of
the manikins—faces they have none, they are too small for that—something
in the way they swing these monstrous volumes to their singing, something
perhaps borrowed from the text, some subtle differentiation from the cut
that went before and the cut that follows after—something, at least,
speaks clearly of a fearful joy, of Heaven seen from the deathbed, of the
horror of the last passage no less than of the glorious coming home.
There is that in the action of one of them which always reminds me, with
a difference, of that haunting last glimpse of Thomas Idle, travelling to
Tyburn in the cart. Next come the Shining Ones, wooden and trivial
enough; the pilgrims pass into the river; the blot already mentioned
settles over and obliterates Christian. In two more cuts we behold them
drawing nearer to the other shore; and then, between two radiant angels,
one of whom points upward, we see them mounting in new weeds, their
former lendings left behind them on the inky river. More angels meet
them; Heaven is displayed, and if no better, certainly no worse, than it
has been shown by others—a place, at least, infinitely populous and
glorious with light—a place that haunts solemnly the hearts of children.
And then this symbolic draughtsman once more strikes into his proper
vein. Three cuts conclude the first part. In the first the gates close,
black against the glory struggling from within. The second shows us
Ignorance—alas! poor Arminian!—hailing, in a sad twilight, the ferryman
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account