|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: taken physic, composing "a song in praise of a liberal genius
(such as I take my own to be) to all studies and pleasures."
The song was unsuccessful, but the Diary is, in a sense, the
very song that he was seeking; and his portrait by Hales, so
admirably reproduced in Mynors Bright's edition, is a
confirmation of the Diary. Hales, it would appear, had known
his business; and though he put his sitter to a deal of
trouble, almost breaking his neck "to have the portrait full
of shadows," and draping him in an Indian gown hired
expressly for the purpose, he was preoccupied about no merely
picturesque effects, but to portray the essence of the man.
|
