STEVENSON’S PERFECT VIRTUES
STEVENSON’S PERFECT VIRTUES
AS EXEMPLIFIED BY LEIGH HUNT
BY
LUTHER A. BREWER
| PRIVATELY PRINTED FOR THE FRIENDS OF LUTHER ALBERTUS AND ELINORE TAYLOR BREWER CEDAR RAPIDS IOWA CHRISTMAS NINETEEN TWENTY-TWO |
Copyrighted 1922 by
Luther A. Brewer
STEVENSON’S PERFECT VIRTUES
Gentleness and cheerfulness are the perfect virtues.
—Robert Louis Stevenson
Stevenson was right. There is not a more admirable trait in one’scharacter than that of cheerfulness. Combined with that other virtuenamed by Stevenson, gentleness, and what more is needed to make acompanionable and a beloved man.
These two attributes were possessed in an emphatic way both by Stevensonand by Leigh Hunt. That’s why some of us are so fond of Hunt. That’s whyhe is growing in esteem as he is becoming better known to lovers andstudents of the literature produced in England during the first half ofthe nineteenth century.
For it is certain that Hunt is coming into his own. First editions ofhis writings year by year are advancing in price. They are becomingscarce and in some instances exceedingly difficult to obtain. Cataloguesof rare book dealers are listing fewer of his works, and when quotationsare made they invariably are in advance of those of a year or two ago.
The cultivation of cheerfulness frequently is enjoined throughout hiswritings. He had many visitors in his home, attracted there by hispersonal qualities[Pg 6] and by his gentleness of heart. He was fond ofmusic, which formed a staple in the entertainment and the conversation.
Barry Cornwall (B. W. Procter), a long time intimate friend, in hisRecollections of Men of Letters, mentions the evenings at Hunt’shouse: “Hunt never gave dinners, but his suppers of cold meat and saladwere cheerful and pleasant; sometimes the cheerfulness (after a ‘wassailbowl’) soared into noisy merriment. I remember one Christmas or NewYear’s evening, when we sat there till two or three o’clock in themorning, and when the jokes and stories and imitations so overcame methat I was nearly falling off my chair with laughter. This was mainlyowing to the comic imitations of Coulson, who was usually so grave aman. We used to refer to him as an encyclopedia, so perpetually, indeed,that Hunt always spoke of him as ‘The Admirable Coulson!’ This viscomica left him for the most part in later life, when he became adistinguished lawyer.”
It was this same Barry Cornwall who introduced Hawthorne to Hunt, acharming account of Hawthorne’s visit being recorded in Our Old Home.“I rejoiced to hear him say,” he writes, “that he was favored with mostconfident and cheering anticipations in respect to a future life; andthere were abundant proofs, throughout our interview, of an unrepiningspirit, resignation, quiet relinquishment of the worldly benefits thatwere denied him, thankful enjoyment of whatever he had to enjoy, andpiety, and hope shining[Pg 7] onward into the dusk—all of which gave areverential cast to the feeling with which we parted from him. I wish hecould have had