Library of the world's best literature, ancient and modern . pin his yarn, allthings are possible to him, and to us. Earlyin the action we give the ship over to him, and do not attempt to account for motive or situation; but swal-low the whole impossible, perfectly credible story, as we swallowed<Red Rover in its time. Perhaps, with all the freedom of the broad seas, the story is told bya young girl, who mentions in the opening chapter that this is herfirst voyage; or perhaps the strange methods of ocean life, the evo-lutions of a ship, and its seizure by convicts in a storm, are relatedin
Library of the world's best literature, ancient and modern . pin his yarn, allthings are possible to him, and to us. Earlyin the action we give the ship over to him, and do not attempt to account for motive or situation; but swal-low the whole impossible, perfectly credible story, as we swallowed<Red Rover in its time. Perhaps, with all the freedom of the broad seas, the story is told bya young girl, who mentions in the opening chapter that this is herfirst voyage; or perhaps the strange methods of ocean life, the evo-lutions of a ship, and its seizure by convicts in a storm, are relatedin nautical phraseology by another young woman who now firstsmells salt water. Perhaps the hero and heroine are picked up in an open boatwhich also holds her venerable father, presumably a thousand milesdistant; — but we do not demur. The art of life, the ernst ist daslebenw kind, is a trifling matter to him and to us. His men andwomen, on the contrary, barring the nautical wisdom of his hero-ines, make no demands on credulity. They are drawn with unadorned. W. Clark Russell 12564 WILLIAM CLARK RUSSELL plainness; they have matter-of-fact affections, and straightforwardviews of duty. The readers first sensation, when he has finished oneof Mr. Clark Russells stories, is the amused perception that he hasbeen in the hands of an entirely independent genius, who has satdown before bare walls, with a sheet of paper in front of him, andtold his tale, undisturbed by the hobgoblin Consistency or the scourgeof tradition,—who would perhaps have written as he writes, if nobodyhad ever written a novel before or since. His material — shipwrecks, storms, fires at sea — is not novel to us;but it is new to him, and he revels in it with all the joy of discov-ery. We may look for nothing modern in the treatment or style; nonote of mental alertness, of swift moral process or subtle is all plain sailing in the world of motive and character. Thesea is the deus ex machina: it battles
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