"The Lantern-Bearers" Response

In Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Lantern-Bearers", the primary metaphor seems to be the lanterns being used as a symbol for both happiness and pleasure. Stevenson writes of those who look at the boys who bear the lanterns: "To the eye of the observer they are wet and cold and drearily surrounded; but ask themselves, and they are in the heavens of a recondite pleasure, the ground of which is an ill-smelling lantern."

This is a juxtaposition to the character of Dancer, who Stevenson writes as someone who "had willingly forgone both comfort and consideration" and "the disdain of many pleasures." Dancer himself seems to be a bit of a representation of not just himself, but all of those people who after childhood have given up on taking pleasure in the small things in life.

Ultimately, I see the lantern being held under the overcoat as a metaphor for keeping close a sense of adventure and joy. They're not only letting any of it escape them, but they are not even daring to give it a chance to escape. The lantern is what distinguishes an active yet comforted mind from a dulled and irritated one.