The Literary Gazette

“ It is based upon a plot that awakens curiosity and keeps it alive throughout. The hero and heroine are marked with individuality, the love-passages are finely drawn, and the story developed with judgment.”—The Civil Service Gazette. ”

“ But, as you by their faces see,
All silent and all damn'd!
A throbbing pulse the Gazer hath—
Puzzled he was, and now is daunted;
He looks, he cannot choose but look;
Like one intent upon a book—
A book that is enchanted. ”

“ But no subject of any importance in literature is ever exhausted, because the products of literature grow or decay, burgeon or wither, as the generations of men apply their ever-varying organs of perception to them. I intend, with your permission, to present to you a familiar phase of the literary life of the eighteenth century from a fresh point of view, and in relation to two men whose surname warrants a peculiar emphasis of respect in the mouth of a Warton Lecturer. ”

“ In truth the whole work abounds in powerful delineation both of character and scenery, and it is with pride that we hail it as at once assuming and commanding a proud rank in the department of historical romance. ”

“ Nor will the literary department of this magazine be permitted to languish. Tales, poems, and articles on art and artists, are solicited from all who feel they have something to say, to which the human heart will gladly listen. ”

“ Terse, incisive descriptions of men and scenery, drawn with so vivid a pen that one can see the characters and their setting, delicious bits of humor, passages full of infinite pathos, make this book absolutely hold the reader from the title to the last word, and as, when finished, one sighs for the pity of it, the feeling rises that such a work has not been written in vain, and will have its place among those which tend to elevate our race. ”

“ A miser pouring out his guineas into his palm and bathing his shrivelled and trembling hands in the yellow heaps before him, is not the prosaic being we are in the habit of thinking him. He is a dreamer, almost a poet. You and I read a novel or a poem to help our imaginations to build up palaces, and transport us into the emotional states and the felicitous conditions of the ideal characters pictured in the book we are reading. ”

“ In these days of overmuch involved plot and diction in the writing of novels, a book like this brings a sense of refreshment, as much by the virility and directness of its style as by the interest of the story it tells.... The human interest of the book is absorbing. ”

“ Pray, do you—as I half suspect—do you, when sitting down to sketch out some budding romance, find that you have filled your paper with the analysis of a character or a sentiment, and that you have risen from your desk without relating a single incident, or advancing your story beyond the first attitude, the first pose of your hero? ”

“ There is a bouquet about it that is lost on the palate which enjoys the "strong" {249} fiction of the material phase through which humanity is now passing—passing perhaps more briefly than most of us imagine. ”

“ Here is a story whose artistic realism will appeal to everyone, while its distinction as a serious novel is made evident by its clever analysis, sparkling dialogue and thrilling and powerful situations. ”

“ When to these admirable qualities are added humor and an atmosphere of appreciative cultivation, the novel-reader feels indeed that his lines have been cast in pleasant places, and he is disposed to linger along in a very contented and uncritical frame of mind. ”

“ The freshness of the new field which was opened up to the imagination—so full of vivid lights and shadows, light-hearted fun, grinding hardship, stirring adventure, heroic action, warm friendships, bitter hatreds—was in exhilarating contrast to the world of the historical romancer and the fashionable novelist, to which the mind of the general reader was at that date given over. ”

“ The shifting position of novelists in our three scales is, perhaps, the most curious outcome of our investigation. Like the poet, the novelist employs as his chief mental implement the faculty of sensuous imagination. ”

“ Finally, I have recorded the names of a small group of stories which possess, I believe, an even finer distinction—the distinction of uniting genuine substance and artistic form in a closely woven pattern with a spiritual sincerity so earnest, and a creative belief so strong, that each of these stories may fairly claim, in my opinion, a position of some permanence in our literature as a criticism of life. Stories of such quality are indicated in the year-book index by three asterisks prefixed to the title, and are also listed in a special “Roll of Honor.” ”

“ There are few things more exciting to me, in short, than a psychological reason, and yet, I protest, the novel seems to me the most magnificent form of art. ”

“ Wonder grows, in analyzing this romance, that in these days of enlightenment, of writing and printing, this story could grow to such absurd proportions and to so many fiction details; that it could gain such wide credence. ”

“ Such was the scene—and such the hour, when, in a corner of my prospect, I spied one of the fairest pieces of nature's workmanship that ever crowned a poetic landscape, or met a poet's eye: those visionary bards excepted who hold commerce with aerial things! Had calumny and villany taken my walk, they had at that moment sworn eternal peace with such an object. What an hour of inspiration for a poet! ”

“ The ingenuity of the plot and the romantic nature of the incidents contrast forcibly with the prosaic character of the personages and the unimpassioned homeliness of the diction. Curiosity and sympathy are deeply excited, and much skill is shown in maintaining the interest to the last. ”

“ The curtain rises for three years on a smooth stream of intellectual reflection, unruffled by outward incident, and then falls again before we are weary of the monotonous flow of undiluted criticism. The Diary of a Lover of Literature is at once the pleasing record of a cultivated mind, and a monument to a species of existence that is as obsolete as nankeen breeches or a tie-wig. ”

“ So easily will it be guessed that I fall short of being a creative romancer, that, when the reader looks in vain in these pages for some exalted eloquence of diction, some graphic description of scenery, or some rhapsody on a flower, he will hesitate to cast the blame upon me, the prosaic, especially as here, at the very beginning, I distinctly state that if there is any kind of eloquence in my story, it is the eloquence of strange happenings—a thing which I have endeavoured to keep my pen from spoiling. ”

“ Do not judge too hastily this sincere effort of a maiden muse. Here was a sense of rhythm, and an effort in the direction of rhyme; here was an honest transcript of an occurrence of daily life, told with a certain idealizing expression, recognizing the existence of impulses, mysterious instincts, impelling us even in the selection of our bodily sustenance. But I had to tell him that it wanted dignity of incident and grace of narrative, that there was no atmosphere to it, nothing of the light that never was and so forth. ”

“ Any charm of the story-tellers of the ages has entered into the body of the tale, which has become an objective presentment of a reality that concentrates on itself and keeps personality out of sight. ”

“ Where once were mighty poets, we have but known
A fugitive or sterile muse of late:
Across the sundering floods and leagues of foam,
On younger peoples in a riper clime
There falls no blight of song, but in full tide
Of passion, poets have blossomed year by year. ”

“ The mystery of verse is like other abstruse and recondite mysteries,—it strikes the ordinary fleshly man as absurd. The claim of the poet on human sympathy, if we regard it merely from the world’s standpoint, is gratuitous, vague, and silly. ”

“ As poetry they mark an epoch. They are the first direct expression of an intimate and personal experience in English literature, struck off in the white heat of passion, and though they are coloured at times with that over-fantastic imagery which is at once a characteristic fault and excellence of the writing of the time, they never lose the one merit above all others of lyric poetry, the merit of sincerity. ”

“ Poetry and art are the breath of life to her. ”

“ Leaving the negative for the positive, then, we may fancy that one or two probabilities loom before us. Poetry, if it exist at all, will deal, and probably to a greater degree than ever before, with those more frail and ephemeral shades of emotion which prose scarcely ventures to describe. ”

“ Your chairman has admirably said, in one of his charming essays, that ‘History may be abstract, science may be frankly inhuman, even art may be purely formal; but poetry must be full of human life’. This consideration, I think, may make us feel perfectly secure as to the ultimate maintenance of poetic expression. ”

“ And all sorts of things that inevitably mar the tense illusion which is the aim of the short story—the introduction, for example, of the author’s personality—any comment that seems to admit that, after all, fiction is fiction, a change in manner between part and part, burlesque, parody, invective, all such things are not necessarily wrong in the novel. ”

“ The mission of the historical novelist is to select from them the most brilliant, the most interesting events, which are connected with the chief personage of his story, and to concentrate them into one poetic moment of his romance. ”

“ It is not impossible that the very picturesque beauty of its situation might be the reason why it had been selected by one who had more poetry in her heart and soul than half the poets of the land in which she lived. ”

“ Our poetry, our histories, our biographies, our newspapers are strong and vigorous, pregnant with thought, trenchant in style; it is not until we turn to the novel that we find a wearisome absence of everything but drivel. ”

“ Delicious drams! why have you not the art
To kill this gnawing Book-worm in my heart? ”

“ In respect to other spheres of our present national and social life I would observe in conclusion that in the field of epic poetry there are practically unlimited opportunities for the romance, the narrative, and the novel. ”

“ In our time, in these early years of the twentieth century, the novel is the prosperous parvenu of literature, and only a few of those who acknowledge its vogue and who laud its success take the trouble to recall its humble beginnings and the miseries of its youth. ”

“ Simplicity and extravagance of style, homeliness and quaintness, tragedy and comedy, interchangeably set their hands and seals to this admirable production. We find the simplicity of prose with the graces of poetry. The stalk grows out of the ground ”

“ Gifted with a lively intellect, and fond of literature, she spent a large part of the day in reading poetry, and opened her house to a society composed mainly of persons who had suffered in the battles of life. ”

“ A fertile and vivid imagination has enabled the author to bring characters upon his stage which represent almost every phase in human nature, and to indulge in personal and scenic descriptions, whether in painting a landscape, or delineating some humorous or some noble quality of the heart, of the most charming character. The reader is enamored with the quiet enjoyments of rural life, and disgusted with the schemes of hackneyed sharpers. ”

“ It is not only that it is written with delicate art: but it is rich in atmosphere—a much rarer thing. The simplicity, the charm, the subtle implication of floating, evasive yet fluctuating romance, your own keen sense of the use of words and their veiled life and latent as well as obvious colour, combine to a winning and often compelling effect. ”

“ In the one class of authors you find the prevalence of strong sense, flanked by wit and by fancy, but without much that can be called imaginative or romantic. In the other, imagination or fancy is the regnant faculty ”

“ I'm of the glamorous ladies
At whose beckoning history shook.
But you are a man, and see only my pan,
So I stay at home with a book. ”

“ OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
"Apart from the sonorous beauty of her lines, there is in her diction a straightforwardness and simplicity, and an entire absence of affectation and false sentiment, which, combined with considerable power of characterization, make her volume a remarkable contribution to English literature."—Times.
"Directness of style and lucidity of narrative are the characteristic excellences of the poem. There are few contemporary poets who could have done so much dramatic business in so few lines. ”

“ I do not question that the closing up of the poetic field, the depending more and more completely for artistic effect upon an "effusion of natural sensibility," will isolate the poet from his fellows. ”

“ POETICAL ADVICE. For the Table Book.
I have pleasure in being at liberty to publish a poetical letter to a young poet from one yet younger; who, before the years of manhood, has attained the height of knowing on what conditions the muse may be successfully wooed, and imparts the secret to his friend. Some lines towards the close, which refer to his co-aspirant’s effusions, are omitted. ”

“ Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie — ”