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026 - Pleasing and Prattling · Reviews

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  Speaker 1: Section twenty five of reviews by Oscar Wilde. This is
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  Speaker 1: a LibriVox recording. All libervox recordings are in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
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  Speaker 1: Recording by Corey Samuel, Reviews by Oscar Wilde, edited by
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  Speaker 1: Robert Ross, Section twenty five. Pleasing and Prattling Pallmal Gazette,
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  Speaker 1: August fourth, eighteen eighty sixty years ago, when Sir Walter
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  Speaker 1: Scott was inaugurating an era of historical romance, The Wolf
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  Speaker 1: of Badenoch was a very popular book to us. Its
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  Speaker 1: interest is more archaeological than artistic, and its characters seem
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  Speaker 1: merely puppets parading in fourteenth century costume. It is true
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  Speaker 1: our grandfathers thought differently. They liked novels in which the
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  Speaker 1: heroine exclaims peace with thine imna prudence, Sir nave dost
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  Speaker 1: thou dare to speak thus in presence of the lady
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  Speaker 1: eleanor de Selby, a graybird's ire shall never while the
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  Speaker 1: hero remarks, the welkin reddens in the West. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: they considered that language like this is exceedingly picturesque and
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  Speaker 1: gives the necessary historical perspective. Nowadays, however, few people have
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  Speaker 1: the time to read a novel that requires a glossary
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  Speaker 1: to explain it, and we fear that without a glossary,
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  Speaker 1: the general reader will hardly appreciate the value of such
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  Speaker 1: expressions as knoth, bauk, Herbero, papillard coepe Wreath's, Panker's, a
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  Speaker 1: groatd laurel, and horror tallowcatch, all of which occur in
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  Speaker 1: the first few pages of The Wolf of Badenoch. In
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  Speaker 1: a novel we want life, not learning, And unfortunately Sir
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  Speaker 1: Thomas Lauda lays himself open to the criticism Johnson made
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  Speaker 1: on Spencer that in a affecting the Ancients he writ
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  Speaker 1: no language. Still, there is a healthy spirit of adventure
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  Speaker 1: in the book, and no doubt many people will be
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  Speaker 1: interested to see the kind of novel the public liked
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  Speaker 1: in eighteen twenty five, Keep My Secret by Miss G. M.
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  Speaker 1: Robins is very different. It is quite modern, both in
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  Speaker 1: manner and in matter. The heroine, Miss Olga Damien, when
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  Speaker 1: she is a little girl, tries to murder mister Victor Burnside.
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  Speaker 1: Mister Burnside, who is tall, blue eyed, and amber haired,
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  Speaker 1: makes her promise never to mention the subject to anyone. This,
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  Speaker 1: in fact, is the secret that gives the title to
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  Speaker 1: the book. The result is that Miss Damien is blackmailed
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  Speaker 1: by a fascinating and unscrupulous uncle and is nearly burnt
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  Speaker 1: to death in the secret chamber of an old castle.
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  Speaker 1: The novel at the end gets too melodramatic in character,
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  Speaker 1: and the plot becomes a chaos of incoherent incidents. But
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  Speaker 1: the writing is clever and right. It is just the
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  Speaker 1: book in fact for a summer holiday, as it is
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  Speaker 1: never dull and yet makes no demands at all upon
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  Speaker 1: the intellect. Missus Chetwynd gives us a new type of widow.
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  Speaker 1: As a rule in fiction, widows are delightful, designing and deceitful.
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  Speaker 1: But missus Dorriman is not, by any means a Cleopatra
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  Speaker 1: in crape. She is a weak, retiring woman, very feeble
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  Speaker 1: and very feminine, and with the simplicity that is characteristic
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  Speaker 1: of such sweet and shallow natures. She allows her brother
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  Speaker 1: to defraud her of all her property. The widow is
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  Speaker 1: rather a bore, and the brother is quite a bear.
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  Speaker 1: But Margaret Rivers, who to save her sister from poverty,
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  Speaker 1: marries a man she does not love is a cleverly
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  Speaker 1: conceived character, and Lady Lyons is an admirable old dowager.
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  Speaker 1: The book can be read without any trouble, and was
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  Speaker 1: probably written without any trouble. Also, the style is prattling
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  Speaker 1: and pleasing of Delamere is not very new. On the
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  Speaker 1: death of her husband, Missus de Ruthven discovers that the
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  Speaker 1: estates belong by right not to her son Raymond, but
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  Speaker 1: to her niece Floret. As she keeps her knowledge to herself.
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  Speaker 1: A series of complications follows, but the cousins are ultimately
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  Speaker 1: united in marriage and the story ends happily. Mister Curzon
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  Speaker 1: writes in a clever style, and though its construction is
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  Speaker 1: rather clumsy, the novel is a thoroughly interesting one. A
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  Speaker 1: daughter of Fife tells us of the love of a
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  Speaker 1: young artist for a Scotch fisher girl. The character sketches
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  Speaker 1: are exceptionally good, especially that of David Promoter, a fisherman
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  Speaker 1: who leaves his nets to preach the gospel, and a
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  Speaker 1: heroine is quite charming till she becomes civilized. The book
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  Speaker 1: is a most artistic combination of romantic feeling with a
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  Speaker 1: realistic form and it is pleasant to read descriptions of
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  Speaker 1: Scotch scenery that do not represent the land of mist
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  Speaker 1: and mountain as a sort of chromolithograph from the Prompt Road.
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  Speaker 1: In mister Spates's novel, a barren title, we have an
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  Speaker 1: impoverished earl who receives an allowance from his relations on
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  Speaker 1: condition of his remaining single, being all the time secretly married,
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  Speaker 1: and the father of a grown up son. The story
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  Speaker 1: is improbable and amusing. On the whole. There is a
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  Speaker 1: great deal to be said for our ordinary English novelists.
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  Speaker 1: They all have some story to tell, and most of
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  Speaker 1: them tell it in an interesting manner. Where they fail
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  Speaker 1: is in concentration of style. Their characters are far too
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  Speaker 1: eloquent and talk themselves to tatters. What we want is
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  Speaker 1: a little more reality and a little less rhetoric. We
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  Speaker 1: are most grateful to them that they have not as
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  Speaker 1: yet accepted any frigid formula nor stereotype themselves into a school.
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  Speaker 1: But we wish that they would talk less and think more.
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  Speaker 1: They lead us through a barren desert of verbiage to
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  Speaker 1: a mirage that they call life. We wander aimlessly through
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  Speaker 1: a very wilderness of words in search of one touch
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  Speaker 1: of nature. However, one should not be too severe on
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  Speaker 1: English novels. They are the only relaxation of the intellectually unemployed.
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  Speaker 1: One The Wolf of Badenoch, historical romance of the fourteenth
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  Speaker 1: century by Sir Thomas Lauder Hamilton, Adams and Company. Two
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  Speaker 1: Keep My Secret by G. M. Robins, Bentley and Son.
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  Speaker 1: Three Missus Dorriman by the Honorable Missus Henry Chetwynd Chapman Hall.
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  Speaker 1: Four Delamere by G. Curzon, Samson, Lowmarsden and Company. Five
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  Speaker 1: A Daughter of Fife by Amelia Barr, James Clark and Company.
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  Speaker 1: Six A Barren Title by T. W. Spate, Chatto and Windus.
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  Speaker 1: End of Section twenty five. Pleasing and prattling