Youth is wholly experimental.

Stevenson’s line comes from his essay “Crabbed Age and Youth,” first published in 1877, when he was in his twenties and writing reflective, personal essays for magazines. In the piece he contrasts the temperaments of youth and age: youth as restless, hopeful, and prone to trying things out; age as more settled, cautious, and inclined to judge. The remark belongs to Stevenson’s broader late-Victorian interest in character, moral psychology, and the everyday drama of self-making—topics he treated not only in fiction but also in essays that blend observation with autobiographical insight.

“Youth is wholly experimental” frames youth less as an age bracket than as a mode of living: a period defined by trial, error, and improvisation. Stevenson suggests that the young learn primarily by testing themselves against the world—taking risks, adopting provisional identities, and discovering limits through experience rather than settled principle. The word “wholly” intensifies the claim, implying that uncertainty and change are not defects of youth but its essential method. Read this way, the line also gently critiques “crabbed” maturity: excessive certainty can harden into narrowness, while experimentation keeps a person open to growth and revision.