Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1880-02-27

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gaze Of Ass hoAry ixAppings. be xoald
haze lla1 10 encounter vastly greater
GOODNESS ard ancoucern. His plots are
not of the modern kind /; the reA Ter n
never made 70 caraeole pas. hobg hlinK
and raurderers to the abyss Of toe Ca
tastrophe the most of mis- characters
are grand public men ani womsn-ths
/ incident history manipulated and
every creature of his creation appears
before us in drspery that hangs grace.
fully together. Goethe repeatedly com.
mends this feature in Scott, aud ad
mired az unique the sublime charm-it
canno: be called skill--which made
characters merge imperceptibly from
high tragedy into side scenes and side
play.
Describing the manners OF the past
ages, Scott himself can never be iden-
titled or COMPOUNDED with any Of his
princely personalities. He takes us
back to the time and spot, and puts the
pigment on before our eyes. His draw
ing is none the worse because of its
elaborateness, or because precision is
not greatly studied. Every face has its
clear outline aud fitting complexion
and his respect for the reader makes
him put his own spectacles out Of the
way when his work is done, and say
"There it is, sir, take your own view"
You canuot mistake the color Of the
pautouffles, the shape of the ruffies
or the tarn OF the shoe. The
only things he borrowed from
the present were his faces. He
went about picking up nineteenth GEN.
fury men and sent them adrift in the
middle ages. His lovers face appears
in three places Erskine was Darsio
I4atimer Miss Cranstoun, Di Vernon
Laidislaw, Dandie Dinmont; and
NJ Guffog, a witness in the tipsy minis
ters case, figures alone with Dirk Hat
teraik in "Guy Mannering." Rarely.
however. does he draw on his own ex-
perience, except, perhaps, in the mat
tiers Of beauty, horsemanship and honor.
He would have fought duel with
General Gourgaud if the general had
challenged him US he expected for po-
litical disclosure in the /" History Of
Napoleon" Mr.. Hutton truly says he
did himself what he would have made
his heroes do. He is like none of his
successors, who all deal with the in
tense present. and the intense reality.
Said Carlyle Your Shakespeare
fashions his. characters from the heart
outward; your Scott fashions them
from the skin inward, never getting
near the heart OF them" The justice
Of this judgment has been only feebly.
impugned. It is because he seldom
gets near the heart, and seldom felt the
dreadful poignancy ofintense emotions,
bitter experiences, and tine tearing con-
ficts of the inner world, that his end
less romance is endlessly entertaining.
His men and women, like himself, lived
in grand baronial residences, and, like
him, they have much heart, a good deal
! of brain, but very little soul, and none
of the over.soul. He had little dissee-
tive or analytic power, and never com
cealed his inaptitude for the domestic
picture& "'The big bow-wow strain I
can do myself likaany now going, but
| the exquisite touch which renders Or
binary com m onplace things and char
acters interesting, from the truth of
the sentiment, is denied me-" 'il,.A, 81
The religious novel. too, he would
probably have secuted. for his vie VS. on
sacred themes were but sparingly ex"
pressed; and the impression one gsth-
ers from his works strengthens the sus-
picion that his choice between q rosy
prior and an ascetic puritan would
probably have lain with the monk. In
deed, his religion, which, for aught We
see, was perfectly sincere and practical,
so far as it went, was little formal,
conventional and apathetic. George
Macdonald's heresies and spiritual
Presby terisaism would have perplexed
him. The philosophy Of George Eliot
was immeasurably beyond him as also
was Thackeray's philosophic satire and
moral thoughtfulness in short, he
seems to have. joined in the comicA
couplet Of Walter de Mspes:- ...
Mysterious and prophetic truths
never could unfold en-" -l
He dearly loved Q Joke, and wrote
many, but, as a class, they are OF de-
cidedly lu N bering kind. de had neither
the crisp humor nor the exquisite pa
tLos of Dickens. Yet his style, full Of
adroit grace, and always plump and
round. easily eludes the irnitator. Or
ten redundant and eiephAntine. there .
freshness in the redundancy itself. He
always wrote without throes. the result
being iall aud easy dow. The mere
plot gave HAN very lixle trouble; he
arranged the heads and plans Of chap
tiers while he dressed, or superintendent
the planting Of his trees /; and il the
printers pressed for copy his compost
ton was all the more free and swiis for
being goaded or. We think il might
be said OF him that Of all ready writers
he WAS the OILY one xhuu Sheridan
would have excepted when he said,
Easy writing Is sometimes Ssry hard
reading. H..t ...s l-d b.
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