Part 1 of Robert Louis Stevenson. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox .org. Recording by David Wales. Robert Louis Stevenson by Gilbert Keith Chesterton and William Robertson Nicole. Part 1. The Personality and Style of Robert Louis Stevenson by William Robertson Nicole. As the years pass, they disengage the virtue of a writer and decide whether or not he has force enough to live. Will Stevenson live? Undoubtedly. He is far more secure of immortality than many very popular writers. The sale of his books may not be great, and he may even disappear from the marts of literature now and then. But he will always be revived, and it may turn out that his reputation may wear as well as that of Charles Lamb. For he engages his readers by the double gift of personality and style. The personality of Stevenson is strangely arresting. In the first place, it was a double personality. In his journey to the Civenes, he reflects that every one of us travels about with a donkey. In his strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the donkey becomes a devil. Every Jekyll is haunted by his Hyde. Somebody said that the strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde showed Stevenson as Poe with the addition of a moral sense. Critics may differ as to the exact literary value of the famous little book, but as an expression of Stevenson's deepest thought about life, it will retain its interest. He was not content to dwell in a world where the lines are unclear, where the sheep are separated from the goats. He would have a foot in both worlds, content to dwell neither wholly with the sheep nor wholly with the goats. No doubt his ruling interest was in ethical problems, and he could be stern in his moral judgments, as for example in his discussion of the character of Burns. He was by nature and training religious, something of the shorter period, an anarchist. His earliest publication was a defense of the Covenanters, and in his last days he established close friendship with the Samoan missionaries. He was by no means orthodox, either in ethics or in religion. Much as he rode on conduct, there were certain subjects, and these the most difficult, on which he never spoke out. On love, for example, and all that goes with it. It is quite certain that he never spoke his full mind to the public at least. Another very striking quality in his personality was his fortitude. He was simply the bravest of men. Now and then, as in his letter to George Meredith, he lets us see under what disabling conditions he fought his battle. Human beings in a world like this are naturally drawn to one who will not let himself be mastered or corrupted by suffering. They do not care for the prosperous, dominant, athletic,