• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 16323 0

perhaps of O’Malley, with one of the flattest and most irrelevant of love-tales. Meantime, in the story proper are repetitions without end. We have already said that the hero saves the life of his mistress twice, and of her father twice. But not content with ­this, he has two mistresses, and saves the life of both, at different periods, in precisely the same manner — that is to say, by causing his horse, in each instance, to perform a Munchausen side-leap, at the moment when a spring forward would have impelled him upon his beloved. And then we have one unending, undeviating succession of junketings, in which “devilled kidneys” are never by any accident found wanting. The unction and pertinacity with which the author discusses what he chooses to denominate “devilled kidneys” are indeed edifying, to say no more. The truth is, that drinking wine, telling anecdotes, and devouring “devilled kidneys” may be considered as the sum total, as the thesis of the book. Never in the whole course of his eventful life, does Mr. O’Malley get “two or three assembled together” without seducing them forthwith to a table, and placing before them a dozen of wine and a dish of “devilled kidneys.” This accomplished, the parties begin what seems to be the business of the author’s existence — the narration of unusually broad tales — like those of the Southdown mutton. And here, in fact, we have the plan of that whole work of which the “United Service Gazette” has been pleased to vow it “would rather be the author than of all the `Pickwicks’ and `Nicklebys’ in the world” — a sentiment which we really blush to say has been echoed by many respectable members of our own press. The general plot or narrative is a mere thread upon which after-dinner anecdotes, some good, some bad, some ut-terly worthless, and not one truly original, are strung with about as much method, and about half as much dexterity, as we see ragged urchins employ in stringing the kernels of nuts.

It would, indeed, be difficult to convey to one who has not examined this production for himself, any idea of the exceedingly rough, clumsy, and inartistical manner in which even this bald conception is carried out. The stories are absolutely dragged in by the ears. So far from finding them result naturally or plausibly from the conversation of the interlocutors, even the blindest reader may perceive the author’s struggling and blundering effort to introduce them. It is rendered quite evident that they were originally “on hand,” and that “O’Malley” has been concocted for their introduction. Among other niaïseries we observe the silly trick of whetting appetite by delay. The conversation over the ­“kidneys” is brought, for example, to such a pass that one of the speakers is called upon for a story, which he forthwith declines for any reason, or for none. At a subsequent “broil” he is again pressed, and again refuses, and it is not until the reader’s patience is fairly exhausted, and he has consigned both the story and its author to Hades, that the gentleman in question is prevailed upon to discourse. The only conceivable result of this fanfarronade is the ruin of the tale when told, through exaggerating anticipation respecting it.

The anecdotes thus narrated being the staple of the book, and the awkward manner of their interlocution having been pointed out, it but remains to be seen what the anecdotes are, in themselves, and what is the merit of their narration. And here, let it not be supposed that we have any design to deprive the devil of his due. There are several very excellent anecdotes in “Charles O’Malley” very cleverly and pungently told. Many of the scenes in which Monsoon figures are rich less, however, from the scenes themselves than from the piquant, but by no means original character of Monsoon — a drunken, maudlin, dishonest old Major, given to communicativeness and mock morality over his cups, and not over careful in detailing adventures which tell against himself. One or two of the college pictures are unquestionably good — but might have been better. In general, the reader