Page:Chesterton - Twelve Types (Humphreys, 1902).djvu/121

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STEVENSON

Mr Baildon, for example, is perpetually lecturing Stevenson for his 'pessimism'; surely a strange charge against the man who has done more than any modern artist to make men ashamed of their shame of life. But he complains that, in 'The Master of Ballantrae' and 'Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde', Stevenson gives evil a final victory over good. Now if there was one point that Stevenson more constantly and passionately emphasised than any other it was that we must worship good for its own value and beauty, without any reference whatever to victory or failure in space and time. 'Whatever we are intended to do', he said, 'we are not intended to succeed'. That the stars in their courses fight against virtue, that humanity is in its nature a forlorn hope, this was the very spirit that

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