Bertram Dobell

“ And if, in becoming acquainted with their aspirations and their achievements, their errors and their sins are also made known to us, even so we have to consider that their faults were such as belong to mankind in general, while their genius belonged to themselves alone. The faults of common men die with them because the men themselves are forgotten, whereas the sins of a Burns or a Byron are remembered because he has himself immortalised them.
Mr. Thomson's works are excellent enough to stand upon their own merits ”

“ To be gifted with fine feelings and to nurse great aspirations, yet to be compelled to labour at uncongenial or repulsive tasks is a sufficiently unfortunate fate; and the victim of such circumstances either sinks eventually to the level of his surroundings, or suffers cruelly in the endeavour to escape from them.
It was a noticeable trait in Thomson's character that he hardly ever failed to make warm friends of those with whom he came in familiar contact. ”

“ Had he done so the world would have lost much; but he himself would have lost nothing that he cared for, and would have been spared long dreary years of suffering and despair. Thenceforth Regret and Sorrow were his inseparable companions, and without hope and almost without object, his was rather a death-in-life than a healthy and natural existence. In striking him thus through his affections, destiny had wounded him where he was most vulnerable. ”

“ I think we must forgive the Americans a good deal of vulgarity and arrogance for some generations yet. They are intoxicated with their vast country and its vaster prospects. Besides, we of the old country have sent them for years past, and are still sending them, our half-starved and ignorant millions. The Americans of the War of Independence were really a British race, and related to the old country as a Greek colony to its mother city or state. But the Americans of to-day are only a nation in that they instinctively adore their union. ”

“ Also I trust that an intellect informed by so much passionate energy as yours will soon give us more heroic strains with a wider embrace of human fellowship in them—such as will be to the labourers of the world what the odes of Tyrteus were to the Spartans, thrilling them with the sublimity of the social order, and the courage of resistance to all that would dissolve it. ”

“ Moreover, one must not forget that there is probably no other periodical in the kingdom which would accept such writings, even were their literary merits far greater than they are. . . .
"While preferring to remain anonymous for the public, I have no reason to hide my name from such correspondents as yourself.—Yours truly,
"James Thomson (B. V.) " In replying to this letter, I expressed a wish to become personally acquainted with Mr. Thomson. He was pleased to accede to my request, and thenceforth we remained on terms of friendship up to the time of his death. ”

“ I answer that there was probably as much reason for them in Thomson's case as there was in Cowper's. The good man suffers more from remorse for the commission of some microscopic offence, than the bad man who commits some atrocious crime. ”

“ When travelling about I always find myself immensely better than when confined to one place. With money, I believe I should never have a home, but be always going to and fro on the earth, and walking up and down in it, like him of whom I am one of the children. ”

“ He studied his works with minute and loving care, and to the last never ceased to speak of him in terms of admiration and gratitude. [2] It is very probable that the study of Shelley's writings first led Thomson to doubt the truth of the doctrines of Christianity; but he would not have accepted even Shelley's conclusions had they not tallied with those which he arrived at by independent inquiry and thought. A change of creed to a sensitive person must ever be a painful process, and there is plenty of evidence to prove that it was so in Thomson's case. ”

“ It would be a mistake to suppose that Thomson's opinions were modified in any way, owing to his intimacy with Bradlaugh. Whatever views he adopted were the result of careful inquiry and long meditation, and few persons were less likely to be swayed by the opinions of others. If he was any man's disciple, he was the disciple of Shelley, in whom he recognised his poetical and personal ideal. ”

“ They are starting over here with all our experience and culture at their command, without any of the obsolete burdens and impediments which in the course of a thousand years have become inseparable from our institutions, and with a country which will want more labour and more people for many generations to come. ”

“ It is probable, indeed, that each liked and respected the other for the very qualities which he himself lacked; certain it is that they remained for many years on terms of intimate friendship.
Bradlaugh, even at this early period of his life, had made himself known as an advocate of extreme political and theological views. Thomson had been pretty well grounded in Presbyterian theology, [1] and although his views at this time may not have been strictly orthodox, yet he still believed in Christianity. ”

“ As regards the change that took place in the author's ideas in the interval that elapsed between their composition, the earlier poem supplies interesting evidence. The author of "The Doom of a City" believes in an over-ruling Providence, and in the Immortality of the Soul. He strives to reconcile the existence of evil with belief in a benevolent Creator, and labours to show that mankind are themselves responsible for the miseries they endure. ”

“ Though never perhaps very strong, and rarely so well as to feel mere existence a delight (as to a really healthy person it must be; no inferior condition, in my opinion, deserves the name of health) , I am seldom what we call unwell. ”

“ It is to be observed that this is the portrait of quite a young girl; but it is obvious that a very slight degree of alteration is needed to make it apply to one much older. Moreover, the passage I have quoted agrees so well with the various references in Mr. Thomson's writings to his lost love, that I can hardly doubt that it is an essentially true picture of her. ”

“ The army cannot be considered as a good school of morals or manners; and it is easy to conceive that the coarse and prosaic life of the camp and the barrack-room was very distasteful to the young student ”

“ Thomson remained in the army as assistant schoolmaster for about two years, the regiment to which he was attached being stationed in Ireland during the whole of that time. At the end of this period he was (according to the usual practice) sent to the Training College at Chelsea to finish the course of studies necessary to qualify him for the post of a schoolmaster. The usual practice is for the students to remain there for two years, which period is required in most cases in order to fit the candidates for their duties. ”

“ All the heterogeneous ingredients are seething in the cauldron with plenty of scum and air bubbles atop. In a century or two they may get stewed down into homogeneity—a really wholesome and dainty dish, not to be set before a king though, I fancy. ”

“ Thomson's writings generally. The editor handed my note to Mr. Thomson, who thereupon wrote me the following letter:—
"Dear Sir,—I have just received from Mr. Bradlaugh your note about myself, and hasten to thank you heartily for your very generous expressions of approval of my writings. While I have neither tried nor cared to win any popular applause, the occasional approbation of an intelligent and sympathetic reader cheers me on a somewhat lonely path.
"You must not blame Mr. Bradlaugh for the delay in continuing my current contribution to his paper. . . . ”

“ Mr. W. M. Rossetti (to whose edition of Shelley's Poetical Works Thomson had contributed some notes) also expressed his great admiration for the poem, and thenceforth remained on very friendly terms with the author. Philip Bourke Marston, the unfortunate Oliver Madox Browne, and Miss Blind may also be mentioned as persons who felt and expressed high admiration for "The City of Dreadful Night." ”

“ Both display the same power of picturesque description: a power that invests the scenes and events described with extraordinary vividness. A painter would find in both many incidents inviting him to transfer them to his canvas, and he might do so almost without introducing a single detail that he did not find described in the poet's verses. In concentration of thought and intensity of expression, "The City of Dreadful Night is as a whole superior to the earlier poem ”

“ This gentleman was a self-educated man, who had attained his position entirely by the force of his own abilities. In befriending Thomson he was seconded by his wife, a most excellent and kind-hearted woman. In some Sonnets, written in 1862, but not intended for publication, Thomson delineates with an affectionate pen the characters of these two friends of his youth. Mr. Barnes he describes as—
"A man of genial heart and liberal mind,
A man most rich in that rare common-sense
Whose common absence in its name we find ”

“ John Fraser, whose success in discovering unknown talent, and in availing himself of it, made him a model editor. The contributors were paid on a very liberal scale, and it is probable that Thomson derived almost as much advanPage:A Voice from the Nile, and Other Poems. (Thomson, Dobell) .djvu/46 Page:A Voice from the Nile, and Other Poems. (Thomson, Dobell) .djvu/47 Page:A Voice from the Nile, and Other Poems. (Thomson, Dobell) .djvu/48 Page:A Voice from the Nile, and Other Poems. (Thomson, Dobell) .djvu/49 Page:A Voice from the Nile, and Other Poems. ”