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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: R. L. STEVENSON'S INCAPACITY TO WRITE VERSE, in a series of
graduated examples with table of contents. I think I shall issue a
companion volume of exercises: 'Analyse this poem. Collect and
comminate the ugly words. Distinguish and condemn the CHEVILLES.
State Mr. Stevenson's faults of taste in regard to the measure.
What reasons can you gather from this example for your belief that
Mr. S. is unable to write any other measure?'
They look ghastly in the cold light of print; but there is
something nice in the little ragged regiment for all; the
blackguards seem to me to smile, to have a kind of childish treble
note that sounds in my ears freshly; not song, if you will, but a
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