Thomas Steevens

“ Although shy and retiring in general society, Steevens developed in his undergraduate days, both as a talker and as a writer in undergraduate periodicals, a wayward brilliance and amusing tendency to paradox. ”

“ The men of the National Observer and the Pall Mall were such keen fighters that they could not be kind or sentimental—and they grew maudlinly sentimental over Steevens's engagement—without a fight for it. They thought he was making a mistake, forgetting that it was his business, not theirs, if he was. He fought alone against them, but he held his place like a man and won. Our Thursday nights had come to an end before he went to America, to Germany, to Khartoum with Kitchener, to South Africa, where he passed into the great silence that no protest of ours, or any man's can break. ”

“ Macray, Annals of the Bodleian Library.
GEORGE STEEVENS, 1736-1800
George Steevens, the Shakesperian commentator, who was born on the 10th of May 1736, was the only son of George Steevens of Stepney, for many years an East India captain, and afterwards a Director of the East India Company. He received his early education at a school at Kingston-on-Thames and at Eton. In 1753 he [Pg 241] was admitted a fellow-commoner of King's College, Cambridge, but left the University without taking a degree. ”

“ The people who may have tried, as they read his almost aggressively brilliant articles, to divine something of the personality behind them, can scarcely have contrived to picture him accurately. They will not imagine the silent, undemonstrative person, invariably kind and ready unasked to do a colleague's work in addition to his own, who dwells in the memory of the friends of Mr Steevens. ”

“ The futility of death makes that an absolute necessity; but I like to think of a possible George Steevens who, when the dust and sand of campaigns and daily journalism had been wiped away from his shoon, would have combined in a great and single-hearted career all the various powers of his fine mind. ”

“ Other excursions followed—to Egypt, to India, to Turkey, to Germany, to Rennes, to the Soudan—and the letters, in almost every case, quickly reappeared as a book.
"A rare combination of gifts contributed to Mr Steevens's success. To begin with, he had a wonderful power of finding his way quickly through a tangle of complicated detail: this he owed, no doubt, in large measure to his Oxford training. He alsoPg 173 was one of the few writers who have brought to journalism the talents, and sympathies, and touch hitherto regarded as belonging more properly to the writer of fiction. ”

“ But there was one who found, to use his own words, 'a strange sideway out of Ladysmith,' whose memory many English-speaking people will preserve. I do not write of Steevens as a journalist, nor as the master of a popular and pleasing style, but as a man. ”

“ It is said that Steevens was so well satisfied with his conduct on this occasion that he promised him the first vacancy, and that his commission to command the Tiger, a 60-gun ship, was actually made out ”

“ Even harmless impostures by some unexpected accident have driven an unwary inquirer out of the course. George Steevens must again make his appearance for a memorable trick played on the antiquary Gough. ”

“ Trash, to shred or lop.—So said Steevens, alleging that he had met with it in books containing directions for gardeners, published in the time of {567} Queen Elizabeth. I fear his memory deceived him, or why should a man of his sound learning afterwards incline to vail bonnet to the dogmatist Warburton? whose knowledge of dogs, by the way, must have been marvellously small, or he could never have imagined them to overtop one another in a horizontal course. Overrun, overshoot, overslip, are terms in hunting, overtop never ”

“ Remains the loss to the great reading public, which we believe that Steevens must have done a vast deal to educate, not to literature so much as to a pride in our country's imperial destiny. Where the elect chiefly admired a scarcely exampled grasp and power of literary impressionism, the man in the street was learning the scope and aspect of his and our imperial heritage, and gaining a new view of his duties as a British citizen. ”

“ Johnson was silent, and left the explanation of the word to Steevens, who, observing that Hamlet meant to rant (as he says he will) , supposed him to defy Laertes "to drink up a river, or try his teeth on an animal whose scales are supposed to be impenetrable." ”

“ STEEVENS, RICHARD (1653–1710) , Irish physician, and Grizell his sister (1653–1746) , were the twin children of John Steevens, an English royalist clergyman who settled in Ireland in the middle of the seventeenth century, and was rector of Athlone from 1660 to 1682. ”

“ Steevens has observed, that there is a passage in B. and Fletcher’s Philaster which bears a strong resemblance to a speech of Jachimo in Cymbeline:
⁠⁠“ I hear the tread of people: I am hurt;
⁠⁠“ The Gods take part against me: could this boar
⁠⁠“ Have held me thus, else?” ”

“ This, at least, shows the popularity of this dance in the reign of George II.
H. C.
Workington.
Footnote 7: (return)
This occurred in the year 1733.
George Steevens and William Stevens (Vol. iii, p. 230.) .—The late Sir J. A. Park wrote Memoirs of William Stevens, the Treasurer of Queen Anne's Bounty, and the biographer of Jones of Nayland. As little resemblance must have existed between this gentleman and "the Puck of commentators," George Steevens, as between the two Harveys ”

“ These sonnets were long overlooked; Steevens spoke of them with the utmost scorn, as productions which no one could read; but a very different suffrage is generally given by the lovers of poetry, and perhaps there is now a tendency, especially among young men of poetical tempers, to exaggerate the beauties of these remarkable productions. They rise, indeed, in estimation as we attentively read and reflect upon them ”

“ Professor Steffens and hundreds of his hearers left the lecture-room, exchanged the university gown for the uniform, and from that day were the pith and marrow of the black band of Lutzow. It is matter of history how Henry Steffens, at the head of his wild Jägers, greatly distinguished himself in the field, won the Iron Cross, and by his animated eloquence and noble example, drew thousands of brave defenders around the standard of German independence. Thirty-two years later, at Berlin, Baron von Rahden followed his mortal remains to their last resting-place. ”

“ How the malice of man can fetch poison from Hell
(Nichols, Lit. Anecdotes, viii. 532, 540) .
The proofs that Steevens was guilty of publishing anonymous libels on his boon companions are happily incomplete. In the case of Garrick some allowance must be made for the vanity which detects slander in all criticism that is not unmitigated eulogy. He contributed an appreciative notice of Garrick to Baker's ‘Biographia Dramatica,’ and the charge made against him by Garrick's biographer, Tom Davies, that he unfairly denounced Garrick's avarice after his death, is untrue ”

“ And at Riverview his father moped in his office and about his fields, growing ever more crabbed and more obstinate, and falling into a rage whenever any one dared mention Tom's name before him.
It was in the spring of 1734 that Tom Stewart mounted his horse and rode out of Williamsburg across the Chickahominy, to try his fortune once more with Patricia Wyeth. The winter had been a hard one for a man brought up as Tom had been, and that suit of peach-bloom velvet had long since been converted into bread. ”

“ Katharine is getting stronger every day, you know."
"Yes," said Paul; "she sat up in a chair this morning, [262] and eat very little déjeuner—breakfast, I mean—and the man—that great big man that sits on the hearth always—said she was getting much strong, and the window is too near the ground—not safe."
"Did he say that?" inquired Tom, breathlessly.
"Yes; the man said that. Then madame—that is the old mother—she look frightened very much, and said, no take the poor sick child away too soon. Then the man said up-stairs was best—high from ground, very sure."
"That's bad," muttered Tom. ”

“ If he did not marry below him, like his father, his sister, and a certain great-uncle William, it was perhaps because he never married at all.
The second brother, Thomas, who was employed in the General Post Office, followed in all material points the example of Stephen, married “not very creditably,” and spent all the money he could lay his hands on. He died without issue; as did the fourth brother, John, who was of weak intellect and feeble health, and the fifth brother, William, whose brief career as one of Mrs. Buckner’s satellites will fall to be considered later on. ”

“ His father used to read to him, especially poetry, and through the kindness of friends he acquired some knowledge of the Latin tongue. His father having been accidentally killed when Thomas was nineteen, it might have fared hard with him, but Dr Stevenson, an eminent medical man in Edinburgh, who had seen some verses composed by the blind youth, took him to the capital, sent him to college to study divinity, and encouraged him to write and to publish poetry. His volume, to which was prefixed an account of the author, by Professor Spence of Oxford, attracted much attention. ”

“ All day long Stephen found himself treated with marked distinction and favour by Black Thompson and his comrades, to some of whom he heard him say, in a loud whisper, that 'Stephen 'ud show himself a chip of the old block yet.' At dinner they invited him to sit within their circle, where he laughed and talked with the best of them, and was listened to as if he were already a man. ”

“ Mechanically, Stewart slipped out of his coat, undid his tie, took off his collar, pulled up his sleeves, and fell to. He was obsessed by a feeling of unreality which even the cold water did not dissipate. It couldn't be true—all this——
"I wish you would hurry, Tommy," said a voice behind him. "I am waiting for you to unhook my bodice."
Stewart started round as though stung by an adder. His companion's hair fell in beautiful dark waves about her shoulders, and he could see that her bodice was loosened. ”

“ Stevie mended his pace obediently. He prided himself on being a good brother. His morality, which was very complete, demanded that from him. Yet he was pained at the information imparted by his sister Winnie who was good. Nobody could help that! He came along gloomily, but presently he brightened up. Like the rest of mankind, perplexed by the mystery of the universe, he had his moments of consoling trust in the organised powers of the earth.
“Police,” he suggested confidently.
“The police aren’t for that,” observed Mrs Verloc cursorily, hurrying on her way. ”

“ And if any one at that time had hinted that Steven Steavens, with his want of reserve and complete indifference to what is known as culture, possessed qualities of character more to be admired than our own, we should not have taken the trouble even to smile at the critic. ”

“ I made my way back, and was not a little disgusted to find my chair occupied by the unconscionable Chevenix.
"My dear Miss Flora, you are unwell!" Indeed, she was pale enough, poor child, and trembling. "Major, she will be swooning in another minute. Get her to the tea-room, quick! while I fetch Mrs. Gilchrist. She must be taken home."
"It is nothing," she faltered: "it will pass. Pray do not——" As she glanced up, she caught my meaning. "Yes, yes: I will go home."
She took the Major's arm, while I hurried to the card-room. ”

“ On either side, from behindPg 136 a sandbag epaulement, a 12-pounder and a Maxim thrust forth vigilant eyes. The sandbag plating of the conning-tower was six feet thick and shoulder-high; the rivets were red earth, loose but binding; on the parapets sprouted tufts of grass, unabashed and rejoicing in the summer weather. Against the parapet leaned a couple of men with the clean-cut, clean-shaven jaw and chin of the naval officer, and half-a-dozen bearded bluejackets. They stared hard out of sun-puckered eyes over the billows of kopje and veldt. ”

“ Mr Verloc never meant Stevie to perish with such abrupt violence. He did not mean him to perish at all. Stevie dead was a much greater nuisance than ever he had been when alive. Mr Verloc had augured a favourable issue to his enterprise, basing himself not on Stevie’s intelligence, which sometimes plays queer tricks with a man, but on the blind docility and on the blind devotion of the boy. Though not much of a psychologist, Mr Verloc had gauged the depth of Stevie’s fanaticism. ”

“ The Helpmakaar road is as safe as Regent Street to-day: a curtain of weeping cloud veils it from the haunting gunners on Bulwan. Up in the schanzes the men huddle under waterproof sheets to escape the pitiless drizzle. Only one sentry stands up in long black overcoat and grey woollen nightcap pulled down over his ears, and peers out towards Lombard's Kop. This position is safe enough with the bare green field of fire before it, and the sturdy, shell-hardened soldiers behind. ”

“ The psychiatrist said reasonably, "But nobody can live by himself, Stevie." He had apparently forgotten Steven, and the boy did not correct him again. "You have to learn to live with other people, to work and play with them, to know them, and the only way you can learn is by being with them. When you can't be with them personally, there's always television. That's how you learn, Stevie. You can't be by yourself." ”

“ How everybody did hunt for that knife and fork, while Stevie sat very pale and quiet, holding one fat thumb hidden by his hand.
Grandpa sat next to the high-chair. "Cheer up, little man: it will be found."
And mother said, "Never mind, pet; it can't be really lost!"
Stevie's thumb hurt him, and he felt so miserable that he couldn't bear his trouble "all alone by himself" any longer, so he sobbed out, "'Tisn't lost! it is in the fountain! Wanted it all by myself!" ”