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    The Author of ' The Bondman * at Home.—A...

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  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

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    Aktiht And Author.—Frequently The

    choosing his subject , has passed over the vital situation or incident of the book or chapter ,

    and taken one which to him , the author , appears quite subsidiary . He forgets that what is important to him does not always lend

    itself to artistic treatment . Indeed , the illustrator must often be sadly puzzled in trying to seize upon the salient feature of a work of

    notion , to adapt : it to his own uses . If , for examp 17 le , an artist were to come to me . and .

    ask what I considered the chief characteristic of such a book ; is ' Anna Karenina , ' I should say a fetid odour : but how is he going to

    represent that ? Or if he came to me and asked what I considered the chief characteristic of such a book as ' The Lady of Aroostook , '

    I should say the sublimation of unconscious ca It ddishness is true he ; and might d what take could the he incident do with of that the ?

    captain of a ship effusively shaking hands with two younor men who had just been vowing between themselves ( one of them with

    glistening eyes ) that nothing—no , nothing—would induce them to wound the susceptibilities of an innocent maiden who had actually ventured

    to come on board without a chaperon ; but that to is a Mr subject . Harry which Furniss might in more a merry fitly mood be entrusted . And

    the abler , the more individual the artist , the more certain is he to look from his own standpoint at the character or the incident to he

    . depicted . I once tried the experiment of having a book of mine illustrated by twelve artist-friendsand took the precaution of giving

    , each draughtsman—except the first , of course —proofs of what his predecessors had done . The result was twelve beautiful drawings , with

    no consistency between any two of them , except in the case of the ' landscapes , which could not conflict . I ought to have known .

    Was it likely , for instance , that Mr . Pettie and Mr . Orchardson and Sir * J . E . Millais would figure forth the same kind of hero I The book

    was enriched , 1 ut the reader was bewildered . And as I am speaking of personal experiences , T may say that the most apposite illustration I

    Walker have inciden ever t , that for met he with A chose Daug was hter done was not of by the Heth of m late . uch ' Fred The

    impor t * he tance whole , perhaps book ; , w but hile it as struck for the the keynote technical of excellence of the drawing itselfthat is far

    beyond any praise of mine . It , might be a lesson to the rough-and-ready illustrator to look at the three preliminary studies for this

    drawing which Walker made : the careful consideration of various attitudes and groupings is most interesting : one of the sketches ,

    indeed , is in colour but Millaia told me he understood that Walker meant subsequently to make a water-colour drawing of the subject

    so that may be the explanation . I may add , that Mr . Ruakin , in his published notes on the Walker exhibitionremarked that the ^ e studies

    were so charming , that they almost tempted him to read the book Fortunately his admiration seems to have stopped short of that

    fatal climax . —William Bla

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    I 5 oc > The Publishers' Circular Nov . i 1890

    The Author Of ' The Bondman * At Home.—A...

    The Author of ' The Bondman * at Home . —A contributor to Great Thoug \ S hts r t who

    has visited Mr . Hall Caine at his home near Keswick , thus describes the now popular novelist and his surroundings : * Mr . Hall Caine

    has recently purchased a house and a . plot of ground just outside the lovely little town of

    Keswick , and it was here I found him . The house is situated at the beautifully wooded foot of Latrigg rjyj , above which soars the

    cloudcapped window summit looks out of over grim Greta Skiddaw and Latri ; the stud and y from the front of the house one catches gg , a

    glimpse of Derwentwater flashing in the sunlight , and across into the vale of Newlands there are views of fairy-like beauty co be

    obtained . Almost the nearest 9 / house is V Chesnut Cottage , where Shelley lived in 1812 . From the windows are visible the tree-tops . A . of

    Greta Bank , once the home of the Calverts , and much mentioned in the memoirs of WordsworthSoutheyDe QuinceyShelley & c

    and also , Greta •/ Hall , , where V both ' % / , Colerid V ' , ge and , Southey lived in turn . Here , in the midst of

    these memories of the past , lives the author of " The Deemster" and " The Bondman , " and a notable figure he looked as he came forward

    to give me a genuine Cumbrian welcome . A tallish , well-set-up man is Mr . Caine , albeit manifestly one whose spirit is at times greater

    than his bodil •/ y strength , for , as a friend of his once said" His is a spirit that will one day cast

    up his bod , y like an old X shoe upon the beach V . " He is of strikingly Elizabethan aspect , and as I

    looked at him I murmured to myself , " Why , it's Shakespeare come to life again ! " But his tempera 4 . ment is pX urely Celtic—eager *— r ,

    enthusiastic , feverishly anxious to be up and doing . In the study there are numerous relics of poor D . G . RossettiHall Caine ' s great friend ,

    who died in his arms , and who was one of the first to discover the srenius , and power of the now world-famed author . There is the great

    sofa in which the poet was wont to spend many weary hours of a suffering life , and above the writing-desk is the cast of his face

    taken after the last sad scene in Broadstairs . The room is full of old oak cabinets and tables collected by Mr . Caine himselfand in

    a corner hangs the lantern borne by , Eugene Aram on that fateful night , and which was

    given to Mr . Caine by his old friend Lord Houghton . Mr . Caine was working hard and systematically at the dramatisation of his

    celebrated novel " The Bondman , " and many a talk I have had with him as I sat in his little pa JL per JL . -littered den as he sat and worked' , alwaymrs

    at red heat , and with a restless tremendous energy that would not be repressed . It was curious to note toonow and againthe intense

    religious fervour charac , terising K- > his , remarks upon the age in which we live , and the manner in which writers—and especially

    t he ters min of ds fiction of their —could readers influence . " A novel and mould / 7 said

    he one day , " should be an epoch in a man ' s life . I do so believe in the ethical purpose of

    fiction . It is not only , to amuse , it muBt instructit must build upits influence should

    be with , men always for , the highest and the best . I know you think I am gloomy

    some-; ' ' ¦ ' * . ' ' ¦ " , ~ yR

• Citation
  • Publishers’ Circular (1880-1890), Nov. 15, 1890, page 1500, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/pc/issues/tec_15111890/page/14/