For they feel that in this
correspondence, besides finding the qualities which distinguish the
other works, they have met face to face and known personally the
romancer, the essayist, the poet, and above all the man who, ridden by
an incubus of disease, spoke always of the joy of living, the man who
knew hours of bitterness but none of flinching, the man who grappled
with his destiny undaunted, and, when death hunted him down in a South
Sea island, fell gallantly and gazing unabashed into "the bright eyes
of danger."
Stevenson approached close to the beau ideal of epistolary art. When
we and our friends have achieved it, distance will be annihilated and
there will be no such thing as separation. We shall draw from our
little box a small white packet, and, though Nostradamus may offer us
every secret of magician or alchemist in exchange for it, we shall
refuse offhand. How shall he lure us with a shadow, a ghostly
visitant, savoring of the pit and summoned only by the most
marrow-freezing incantations? Here in our hand is a mysterious, more
potent charm, bringing us the warm, human personality of the man.
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