Thomas Seccombe

“ Thus ended the surprise of Cremona, one of the most remarkable events in modern warfare: a garrison of seven thousand men, in a town strongly fortified, surprised in their beds, obliged to march in their shirts, in the obscurity of the night, through streets filled with cavalry, meeting death at every step; scattered in small bodies, without officers to lead them, fighting for ten hours without food or clothes, in the depth of winter, yet recovering gradually every post, and ultimately forcing the enemy to a precipitate retreat. ”

“ Having early got rid of the sporting element, Dickens found himself at once. The subject exactly suited his knowledge, his skill in arranging incidents—nay, his very limitations too. No modern book is so incalculable. We commence laughing heartily at Pickwick and his troupe. The laugh becomes kindlier. We are led on through a tangle of adventure, never dreaming what is before us. The landscape changes: Pickwick becomes the symbol of kind-heartedness, simplicity and innocent levity. ”

“ Though Gilbert's novels were never very popular, they were highly esteemed by a select circle for their originality. A story-teller sui generis, lacking in perspective, in fusing power, and in continuity, Gilbert was, on the other hand, endowed with a style of sparkling lucidity, a clever perhaps rather than profound observation, and a very dry but subtle humour, in which there is certainly some infusion of the spirit of Democritus. ”

“ Meredith's novels are more like Platonic dialogues than works of fiction. His characters have as a rule singularly little volition or speech of their own. The voice of their creator can be heard perpetually prompting them from behind a screen. The poems fill the interstices of thought in the novels. Oscar Wilde said with some point that Meredith had mastered everything but language: as a novelist he could do anything except tell a story, as an artist he was everything except articulate. ”

“ In Pepys the malignity of the literary fairy is more than compensated by the worthy secretary’s insatiable appetite for life; in Borrow by the wanderlust or extraordinary passion and faculty for adventure, which makes his best books such an ambrosial hash of sorcery, Jews, Gentiles, gipsies, prisons, half-in-halves, cosas de España—what you will. ”

“ Trollope praised Lever’s novels highly when he said that they were just like his conversation. He was a born raconteur, and had in perfection that easy flow of light description which without tedium or hurry leads up to the point of the good stories of which in earlier days his supply seemed inexhaustible. With little respect for unity of action or conventional novel structure, his brightest books, such as Lorrequer, O’Malley and Tom Burke, are in fact little more than recitals of scenes in the life of a particular “hero,” unconnected by any continuous intrigue. ”

“ In England it is easier to feel his attraction than that of some far greater reputations in French poetry, for, rhetorical though he nearly always is, he yet reveals something of that quality which to the Northern mind has always been of the very essence of poetry, that quality which made Sainte-Beuve say of him that he was the first great poet “personnel et rêveur” in France since La Fontaine. ”

“ Deeply but not ostentatiously religious, showing in every utterance and action her dislike of the morbid and the peculiar, and of radicalism in politics, Lady Eastlake developed into a typical English grande dame, serene and easy in manner, intellectual and courageous, impervious to bores, highly esteemed and looked up to in the best society in London for wellnigh fifty years. ”

“ Unsurpassed in poignancy in the whole of modern literature is the sensation of compassion evoked by the scene between the self-tormented Raskolnikov and the humble street-walker, Sonia, whom he loves, and from whom, having confessed his crime, he derives the idea of expiation. ”

“ But the success of Castle Howard now caused him to entertain the rash project of building a theatre in the Haymarket, from his own design, for the acting of his own plays. The joyous courage with which, having persuaded thirty people in the fashionable world to aid him in finding the money, and Congreve to aid him in finding the plays, he began to build in perfect unconsciousness of the danger before him, is the only passage in his life which may be called pathetic, save of course his struggle with the “wicked woman of Marlborough.” ”

“ In 1863, while still at Copsham, Meredith reconcentrated upon fiction, and submitted to the gradual intensification of labour which the completion of a novel always involved. In April 1864 he brought out 'Emilia in England' (afterwards rechristened 'Sandra Belloni') , the only story which he furnished with a sequel (in 'Vittoria,' 1866) . Emilia's passion for Italy forms the central theme of the whole. Her figure, the most beautiful and elaborate he had yet portrayed, dominates the two novels. Nowhere are the gems of his insight more lavishly scattered. There are admirable woodland scenes. ”

“ Hussey bore the severe attack with great forbearance, the Hibernian spirit was roused by the illiberal satire’ conveyed in the lines:
Nature indeed denies them sense;
But gives them legs and impudence
That beats all understanding.
To avoid a succession of duels, Williams prudently retired into Monmouthshire under a well-directed fire of counter lampoons. Years afterwards, when Lord Beaulieu was on a visit to Strawberry, Horace Walpole was disconcerted by the black looks that he cast upon the portrait of his old friend Hanbury Williams in his black-and-gold frame. ”

“ To men of such close and restricted horizons the breath of the Romany Rye is as that of “the wind on the heath, brother.” Hence the stern and unbending jealousy of their cult. Real literary enthusiasts of advanced years are almost as rare in our streets as elderly naval men of the peculiar type discovered by Mr. Gilbert. Yet a chance word in a London thoroughfare has before now elicited this ingenuous confession of faith: “I’d walk any distance to see anything belonging to George Borrow or to read anything fresh of his. ”

“ On the other hand, his descriptive power in treating of nature shows far more art than the Trianin school ever attained. His love of the woodland and his political fervour often remind us of Shelley, and his delicate perception of Hellenic beauty, and the perfume of Greek legend, give us almost a foretaste of Keats. ”

“ Raskolnikov finally gives himself up to the police and is exiled to Siberia, whither Sonia follows him. The book gave currency to a number of ideas, not in any sense new, but specially characteristic of Dostoievsky: the theory, for instance, that in every life, however fallen and degraded, there are ecstatic moments of self-devotion; the doctrine of purification by suffering, and by suffering alone; and the ideal of a Russian people forming a social state at some future period bound together by no obligation save mutual love and the magic of kindness. ”

“ Pungent observation allied to a vigorous prose, emancipated to a rare degree from provincialism or archaism, were perhaps the first of Smollett's qualifications as a novelist. Such coherence as his novels have owes more to accidental accumulation than to constructive design. The wealth of amusing incident, the rapidly moving crowd of amusing and eccentric figures, atones for a good many defects. Smollett's peculiar coarseness and ferocity were gradually eliminated from English fiction, but from Tom Jones right down to Great Expectations his work was regularly ransacked for humour. ”

“ His sketch of a universal language exhibits rare ingenuity, learning, and critical acumen. Hugh Miller pointed out that the modern chemical vocabulary, with all its philosophical ingenuity, is constructed on principles exactly similar to those which Urquhart divulged more than a hundred years prior to its invention in the preface to his ‘Universal Language.’ His fantastic and eccentric diction, which accurately reflects his personality, obscures in much of his writing his learning and his alertness of intellect. ”

“ After herding for years with the worst criminals, Dostoievsky obtained an exceptional insight into the dark and seamy side of Russian life. He formed new conceptions of human life, of the balance of good and evil in man, and of the Russian character. Psychological studies have seldom, if ever, found a more intense form of expression than that embodied by Dostoievsky in his novel called Crime and Punishment. ”

“ Suddenly in the Fleet Prison a deeper note is struck. The medley of human relationships, the loneliness, the mystery and sadness of human destinies are fathomed. The tragedy of human life is revealed to us amid its most farcical elements. ”

“ Ormsby is memorable chiefly for his work in the domain of Spanish literature. His acquaintance with Spain, with its political and literary history, was both deep and wide. He had thoroughly explored the country, and during one prolonged expedition through its mountainous districts he suffered privations which had the effect of entirely destroying his power of hearing. For the last ten or twelve years of his life excessive deafness cut him off almost entirely from social intercourse; but his pen was never idle, and he mainly devoted himself to translations from the Spanish. ”

“ The man of tongues lacked speech wherewith to make manifest his passion; the vocabulary of the word-master was insufficient to convince the workhouse girl of one of the plainest meanings a man can well have. When the distracted Borrow had reached the decision that it was high time to give over his “mocking and scoffing,” and returned with this resolve to the dingle, Isopel Berners had quitted it, never to return. She ran away to the nearest sea-port, and took shipping to America. Lavengro with some anguish steeled his heart against following her. ”

“ Napoleon summoned the ambassador, and, after a stormy outburst of rhetoric, concluded with the memorable appeal, ‘Unissons-nous plutôt que de nous combattre, et nous réglerons ensemble les destinées du monde.’ Any significance that this offer might have had was more than neutralised by the first consul's observation, ‘Ce sont des bagatelles’ (much commented upon in England) , when, in answer to reproaches about Malta, Whitworth hinted at the augmentation of French power in Piedmont, Switzerland, and elsewhere. ”

“ Drummond's adroitness in rehandling old arguments was truly remarkable, but his general thesis that the struggle for life gradually became altruistic in character, or 'struggle for the life of others,' and that 'the object of evolution is love,' was very severely criticised by men of science, while some of his attempts to qualify the apparent harshness of the scheme of natural selection, by such phrases as 'With exceptions, the fight is a fair fight. ”

“ The attraction was so strong that he had serious thoughts of emigrating with “the beauteous Queen of the Dingle,” but he dallied with the idea with characteristic waywardness until it was too late. He sought to postpone awkward decisions, to divert himself and amuse Isopel by making his charmer learn Armenian—the language which he happened at the time to be studying. Isopel bore with it for some time, but the imposition of the verb “to love” in Armenian convinced her that the word-master was not only insane, but also inhuman. ”

“ He looked upon himself in later years as a man of Kent, and his capital abode as that in Ordnance Terrace, or 18 St Mary’s Place, Chatham, amid surroundings classified in Mr Pickwick’s notes as “appearing” to be soldiers, sailors, Jews, chalk, shrimps, officers and dockyard men. He fell into a family the general tendency of which was to go down in the world, during one of its easier periods (John Dickens was now fifth clerk on £250 a year) , and he always regarded himself as belonging by right to a comfortable, genteel, lower middle-class stratum of society. ”

“ He had not much in common with the ordinary turfite, having retained to the last ‘the view he had imbibed at Rugby as to the respect due to classical scholarship, to liberalism in politics, and above all to religion.’ Yet, as an exponent of sporting tradition, he has no rival, though all sporting journalists have lit their torches at the Druid's fire. His sympathies were nearly universal, and, inclining always to take a kindly view of human nature, he studiously avoided writing a word to cause pain. ”

“ Already in January, 1843, he wrote to his publisher that he had begun upon a Robinson Borrow, and Murray, Ford, and other friends threw up their caps. The publisher may have well seen a veritable gold mine in prospect. One has only to imagine the fervent curiosity which the personal element in “The Bible in Spain,” so suggestive of mystery and romance, must have exalted in the reading public of 1843, to perceive that any such anticipation was fully warranted by the facts of the case. ”

“ If he makes a tour in any part of the British Isles, he writes a full description of all he sees, of everything that happens, and writes it with such gusto, such mirth, such strokes of fine picturing, as appear in no other private letters ever given to the public. ”

“ The influence of Dickens is very clearly traceable in Collins's work, yet there is reason to believe that Collins had nearly as much influence upon the latest works of the greater writer as Dickens had upon him. Dickens longed to shine as an elaborator of plots, while Collins, the past master of the plot, aspired to be a delineator of character and to produce didactic fiction and reformatory romance after the Dickensian model. ”

“ His determination to be original and to tell the truth, to avoid all padding and second-hand ideas, kept him on the rack; yet he persevered, working hard at the Life with intervals of discouragement for no less than six years. “Lavengro” eventually appeared, in three volumes, in February, 1851, and was received not merely with coldness and unconcern, but with hostile carping and even derision. The critics and Borrow pronounced themselves mutually disillusioned. It was natural that a man like Borrow should magnify and should misinterpret this unexpected blow. ”

“ During a trial that lasted over one hundred days the claimant exhibited an ignorance, a cunning and a bulldog tenacity in brazening out the discrepancies and absurdities of his depositions, which have probably never been surpassed in the history of crime. Over one hundred persons swore to the claimant’s identity, the majority of them—and they were drawn from every class—being evidently sincere in their belief in his cause. ”

“ Loyalty to the Prayer Book was his watchword, and he regretted the way in which 'some of the clergy were transforming the church of England into a congregational body.' His affinities were with the tractarian school of thought, though he combined a good deal of Cambridge practicality with it. A man of an austere exterior, Butler had a very kind heart, and felt sorry for people even when he wounded them by speaking the truth. ”

“ His unique force in literature he was to owe to no supreme artistic or intellectual quality, but almost entirely to his inordinate gift of observation, his sympathy with the humble, his power over the emotions and his incomparable endowment of unalloyed human fun. To contemporaries he was not so much a man as an institution, at the very mention of whose name faces were puckered with grins or wreathed in smiles. ”

“ With the exception of Jane Austen (and temporarily speaking, perhaps Charles Dickens) there is hardly any literary character whom it is so dangerous to approach without passports and periphrases (securing retreat, if necessary) and plentiful kow-tows as George Borrow. Among all literary clansmen you shall hardly find one more implacable, more fierce, or more blindly fanatical than your Borrovian. Charles Lamb is almost the only author we can think of (out of Scotland) who is worshipped by his admirers with quite the same canine sort of affection. ”

“ There is a touch of genius, too, in the naïf and imperturbable good nature and persistency (“Sir, I will not be baited with ’what’ and ‘why.’ ‘Why is a cow’s tail long?’ ‘Why is a fox’s tail bushy?’ ”) , and even in the abnegation of all personal dignity, with which Boswell pursued his hero. As he himself said of Goldsmith, “He had sagacity enough to cultivate assiduously the acquaintance of Johnson, and his faculties were gradually enlarged.” Character, the vital principle of the individual, is the ignis fatuus of the mechanical biographer. ”