Of Stevenson as a moralist I hesitate to write because whatever is said on this point is almost certain to be misunderstood. On one side are the puritans who frown at a preacher in a velvet jacket; on the other side the pagans who scoff at an artist who cares for morals. Yet surely there is a way between the two extremes where an artist-man may follow his conscience with joy to deal justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with his God. And having caught sight of that path, though he may trace it but dimly and follow it stumbling, surely such a man may say to his fellows, “This is the good way; let us walk in it.” Not one of the great writers who have used the English language, so far as I know, has finished his career without wishing to moralize, to teach something worth learning,
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 to stand in the pulpit of experience and give an honest message to the world. Stevenson was no exception to this rule. He avowed the impulse frankly when he said to William Archer, “I would rise from the dead to preach.”
In his stories we look in vain for “morals” in the narrow sense,—proverbs printed in italics and tagged on to the tale like imitation oranges tied to a Christmas tree. The teaching of his fiction is like that of life, diffused through the course of events and embodied in the development of characters. But as the story unfolds we are never in doubt as to the feelings of the narrator,—his pity for the unfortunate; his scorn for the mean, the selfish, the hypocritical; his admiration for the brave, the kind, the loyal and cheerful servants of duty. Never at his lightest and gayest does he make us think of life as a silly farce; nor at his sternest and saddest does he leave us disheartened, “having no hope and witho............