It is impossible even in such a cursory estimate of Stevenson as this to pass over his vignettes of Nature. And it is the more necessary to emphasize these, inasmuch as the Vagabond’s passion for the Earth is clearly discernible in these pictures. They are no Nature sketches as imagined by a mere “ink-bottle feller”—to use a phrase of one of Mr. Hardy’s rustics. One of Stevenson’s happiest recollections was an “open air” experience when he slept on the earth. He loved the largeness of the open air, and his intense joy in natural sights and sounds bespeaks the man of fine, even hectic sensibility, whose nerves quiver for the benison of the winds and sunshine. Ever since the days of Mrs. Radcliffe, who used the stormier aspects of Nature with such effect in her stories, down to Mr. Thomas Hardy, whose massive scenic effects are so remarkable, Nature has been regarded as a kind of “stage property” by the novelist. To the great writers the Song of the Earth has proved an inspiration only second to the “Song of Songs,” and the lesser writer has imitated as best he could so effective a decoration. But there is no mistaking the genuine lover of the Earth. He does not—as Oscar Wilde wittily said of a certain popular novelist—“frighten the evening sky into violent chromo-lithographic effects”; he paints the sunrises and sunsets with a loving fidelity which there is no mistaking. Nor are all the times and seasons of equal interest in his eyes. If we look back at the masters of fiction (ay, and mistresses too) in the past age, we shall note how each one has his favourite aspect, how each responds more readily to one special mood of the ancient Earth. Mention has been made of Mrs. Radcliffe. Extravagant and absurd as her stories are in many ways, she was a genuine lover of Nature, especially of its grand and sublime aspects. Her influence may be traced in Scott, still more in Byron. The mystic side of Nature finds its lovers chiefly in the poets, in Coleridge and in Shelley. But at a later date Nathaniel Hawthorne found in the mysticism of the Earth his finest inspiration; while throughout the novels of Charlotte and Emily Brontë wail the bleak winds of the North, and the grey storm-clouds are always hurrying past. Even in Dickens there is more snow than sunshine, and we hear more of “the winds that would be howling at all hours” than of the brooding peace and quiet of summer days. Charles Kingsley is less partial towards the seasons, and cares less about the mysticism than the physical influences of Nature. In our own day Mr. George Meredith has reminded us of the big geniality of the Earth; and the close relationship of the Earth and her moods with those who live nearest to her has found a faithful observer in Mr. Hardy. Stevenson differs from Meredith and Hardy in this. He looks at her primarily with the eye of the artist. They look at her primarily with the eye of the scientific philosopher.