Roundabout Papers [127]
"'My prayer is heard. Life's cord is cut by heaven. Helen! Helen! May heaven preserve my country, and--' He stopped. He fell. And with that mighty shock the scaffold shook to its foundations." ** The remark of Bruce (which I protest I had not read for forty-two years), I find to be as follows:--"When this was uttered by the English heralds, Bruce turned to Ruthven, with an heroic smile, 'Let him come, my brave barons! and he shall find that Bannockburn shall page with Cambuskenneth!'" In the same amiable author's famous novel of "Thaddeus of Warsaw," there is more crying than in any novel I ever remember to have read. See, for example, the last page. . . . "Incapable of speaking, Thaddeus led his wife back to her carriage. . . . His tears gushed out in spite of himself, and mingling with hers, poured those thanks, those assurances, of animated approbation through her heart, which made it even ache with excess of happiness." . . . And a sentence or two further. "Kosciusko did bless him, and embalmed the benediction with a shower of tears."
The glorious Scott cycle of romances came to me some four or five years afterwards; and I think boys of our year were specially fortunate in coming upon those delightful books at that special time when we could best enjoy them. Oh, that sunshiny bench on half- holidays, with Claverhouse or Ivanhoe for a companion! I have remarked of very late days some little men in a great state of delectation over the romances of Captain Mayne Reid, and Gustave Aimard's Prairie and Indian Stories, and during occasional holiday visits, lurking off to bed with the volume under their arms. But are those Indians and warriors so terrible as our Indians and warriors were? (I say, are they? Young gentlemen, mind, I do not say they are not.) But as an oldster I can be heartily thankful for the novels of the 1-10 Geo. IV., let us say, and so downward to a period not unremote. Let us see there is, first, our dear Scott. Whom do I love in the works of that dear old master? Amo-- The Baron of Bradwardine and Fergus. (Captain Waverley is certainly very mild.) Amo Ivanhoe; LOCKSLEY; the Templar. Amo Quentin Durward, and especially Quentin's uncle, who brought the boar to bay. I forget the gentleman's name. I have never cared for the Master of Ravenswood, or fetched his hat out of the water since he dropped it there when I last met him (circa 1825). Amo SALADIN and the Scotch knight in the "Talisman." The Sultan best. Amo CLAVERHOUSE. Amo MAJOR DALGETTY. Delightful Major. To think of him is to desire to jump up, run to the book, and get the volume down from the shelf. About all those heroes of Scott, what a manly bloom there is, and honorable modesty! They are not at all heroic. They seem to blush somehow in their position of hero, and as it were to say, "Since it must be done, here goes!" They are handsome, modest, upright, simple, courageous, not too clever. If I were a mother (which is absurd), I should like to be mother-in-law to several young men of the Walter-Scott-hero sort. Much as I like those most unassuming, manly, unpretending gentlemen, I have to own that I think the heroes of another writer, viz.-- LEATHER-STOCKING, UNCAS, HARDHEART, TOM COFFIN, are quite the equals of Scott's men; perhaps Leather-stocking is better than any one in "Scott's lot." La Longue Carabine is one of the great prize-men of fiction. He ranks with your Uncle Toby, Sir Roger de Coverley, Falstaff--heroic figures, all--American or British, and the artist has deserved well of his country who devised them. At school, in my time, there was a public day, when the boys' relatives, an examining bigwig or two from the universities, old schoolfellows, and so forth, came to the place. The boys were all paraded; prizes were administered; each lad being in a new suit of clothes--and magnificent dandies, I promise you, some of us were. Oh, the chubby cheeks, clean collars, glossy new raiment, beaming faces, glorious in youth--fit tueri coelum--bright with truth, and mirth, and honor! To see a hundred boys marshalled
The glorious Scott cycle of romances came to me some four or five years afterwards; and I think boys of our year were specially fortunate in coming upon those delightful books at that special time when we could best enjoy them. Oh, that sunshiny bench on half- holidays, with Claverhouse or Ivanhoe for a companion! I have remarked of very late days some little men in a great state of delectation over the romances of Captain Mayne Reid, and Gustave Aimard's Prairie and Indian Stories, and during occasional holiday visits, lurking off to bed with the volume under their arms. But are those Indians and warriors so terrible as our Indians and warriors were? (I say, are they? Young gentlemen, mind, I do not say they are not.) But as an oldster I can be heartily thankful for the novels of the 1-10 Geo. IV., let us say, and so downward to a period not unremote. Let us see there is, first, our dear Scott. Whom do I love in the works of that dear old master? Amo-- The Baron of Bradwardine and Fergus. (Captain Waverley is certainly very mild.) Amo Ivanhoe; LOCKSLEY; the Templar. Amo Quentin Durward, and especially Quentin's uncle, who brought the boar to bay. I forget the gentleman's name. I have never cared for the Master of Ravenswood, or fetched his hat out of the water since he dropped it there when I last met him (circa 1825). Amo SALADIN and the Scotch knight in the "Talisman." The Sultan best. Amo CLAVERHOUSE. Amo MAJOR DALGETTY. Delightful Major. To think of him is to desire to jump up, run to the book, and get the volume down from the shelf. About all those heroes of Scott, what a manly bloom there is, and honorable modesty! They are not at all heroic. They seem to blush somehow in their position of hero, and as it were to say, "Since it must be done, here goes!" They are handsome, modest, upright, simple, courageous, not too clever. If I were a mother (which is absurd), I should like to be mother-in-law to several young men of the Walter-Scott-hero sort. Much as I like those most unassuming, manly, unpretending gentlemen, I have to own that I think the heroes of another writer, viz.-- LEATHER-STOCKING, UNCAS, HARDHEART, TOM COFFIN, are quite the equals of Scott's men; perhaps Leather-stocking is better than any one in "Scott's lot." La Longue Carabine is one of the great prize-men of fiction. He ranks with your Uncle Toby, Sir Roger de Coverley, Falstaff--heroic figures, all--American or British, and the artist has deserved well of his country who devised them. At school, in my time, there was a public day, when the boys' relatives, an examining bigwig or two from the universities, old schoolfellows, and so forth, came to the place. The boys were all paraded; prizes were administered; each lad being in a new suit of clothes--and magnificent dandies, I promise you, some of us were. Oh, the chubby cheeks, clean collars, glossy new raiment, beaming faces, glorious in youth--fit tueri coelum--bright with truth, and mirth, and honor! To see a hundred boys marshalled