came back to him later that evening, when he was exploring the new cottage. The landlord had a surprisingly extensive library, which included a set of Gibbon: the 1872 edition, annotated by Doctor Smith. Steevens, who was a Gibbonian, had been delighted when his attention had been drawn to it. For want of anything else to read, Nevinson carried the first volume up to bed with him that night. He wouldn’t have time to get through much of it, of course, but just a few words from the great man would be a dose of good for his own prose.
But he found it as heavy to read as it was to carry, and after half an hour went downstairs again in his pyjamas to find something a bit more congenial. It wasn’t that he couldn’t stomach true learning. He was as well read as Steevens and had already published two books on German letters—one on Herder, one on Schiller—in addition to Neighbours of Ours , his Cockney fantasia about ordinary life in the East End. It was just that he wanted a good read to take his mind off things. He scanned the shelves: Kloof Yarns, The Phantom Future, Women Adventurers, In the Heart of the Storm …
Ah, here was just the thing. Illusion: A Romance of Modern Egypt . On taking it up to bed and settling down with it, he found that although the author wrote with great assurance, she took little pains with her style and employed an often clumsy extravagance of diction. Her figures, too—the officers of a dragoon regiment quartered in Cairo—had not quite the air of being true to the life of the historical period that they portrayed, of some forty or fifty years ago.
But as he got deeper into the sensational story, Nevinson began to entertain a very much higher opinion of the author’s talent. For, notwithstanding all her literary deficiencies, she was very effective. The plot seemed impossible, but it was dramatic; the figures seemed unreal, but were well grouped; and the hero, a captain, was thrown into due prominence: a rather commonplace, highly respectable man with many virtues and but one redeeming enthusiasm—his profession.
The story, which Nevinson finished that very night, went some way along these lines: one night, the captain is discovered hopelessly drunk, but he is popular with his regiment and the affair is concealed. Yet it happens again, and when he disgraces the uniform a third time he is court-martialled and dismissed from the service. He sets off south and is captured by the dervishes and made a slave. Here the honest, puzzled man rises to a great occasion, and after showing the courage of a martyr for the faith that he has, somewhat conventionally, held, he escapes, to find eventually that his disgrace was an ‘illusion’, and that he had been drugged by the enemy.
The novel was more striking than this bare analysis of its plot would indicate. It was written with an admirable sincerity and, thought Nevinson on going to sleep, was altogether uncommon.
In the morning, when he awoke, he thought it was rubbish.
Six
T he Biographer, sick from the effects of typhoid inoculation, could hardly focus upon the chalked words. BOERS DEFEATED—THREE BATTLES—PENN SYMONS KILLED . When he and the other passengers of the Dunottar Castle saw the blackboard hung on the side of the other ship—the Australasian , on its way from the Cape—at first not a word was spoken. Then, slowly, some people began expressing their desire for vengeance at Penn Symons’s death; others, including Churchill, were simply anxious that the fighting would not be over before they reached South Africa.
The remainder of the voyage was passed in heavy anticipation. The deck games of cricket and tug-of-war lost their gaiety, and people began packing, and sharpening their rusted swords. A special machine—somewhat like a bicycle, with a grindstone for a wheel—was brought out on deck for this purpose. As farrier, Perry Barnes was called upon to do the work, and by the time he had put an edge on 600 swords, he was
But he found it as heavy to read as it was to carry, and after half an hour went downstairs again in his pyjamas to find something a bit more congenial. It wasn’t that he couldn’t stomach true learning. He was as well read as Steevens and had already published two books on German letters—one on Herder, one on Schiller—in addition to Neighbours of Ours , his Cockney fantasia about ordinary life in the East End. It was just that he wanted a good read to take his mind off things. He scanned the shelves: Kloof Yarns, The Phantom Future, Women Adventurers, In the Heart of the Storm …
Ah, here was just the thing. Illusion: A Romance of Modern Egypt . On taking it up to bed and settling down with it, he found that although the author wrote with great assurance, she took little pains with her style and employed an often clumsy extravagance of diction. Her figures, too—the officers of a dragoon regiment quartered in Cairo—had not quite the air of being true to the life of the historical period that they portrayed, of some forty or fifty years ago.
But as he got deeper into the sensational story, Nevinson began to entertain a very much higher opinion of the author’s talent. For, notwithstanding all her literary deficiencies, she was very effective. The plot seemed impossible, but it was dramatic; the figures seemed unreal, but were well grouped; and the hero, a captain, was thrown into due prominence: a rather commonplace, highly respectable man with many virtues and but one redeeming enthusiasm—his profession.
The story, which Nevinson finished that very night, went some way along these lines: one night, the captain is discovered hopelessly drunk, but he is popular with his regiment and the affair is concealed. Yet it happens again, and when he disgraces the uniform a third time he is court-martialled and dismissed from the service. He sets off south and is captured by the dervishes and made a slave. Here the honest, puzzled man rises to a great occasion, and after showing the courage of a martyr for the faith that he has, somewhat conventionally, held, he escapes, to find eventually that his disgrace was an ‘illusion’, and that he had been drugged by the enemy.
The novel was more striking than this bare analysis of its plot would indicate. It was written with an admirable sincerity and, thought Nevinson on going to sleep, was altogether uncommon.
In the morning, when he awoke, he thought it was rubbish.
Six
T he Biographer, sick from the effects of typhoid inoculation, could hardly focus upon the chalked words. BOERS DEFEATED—THREE BATTLES—PENN SYMONS KILLED . When he and the other passengers of the Dunottar Castle saw the blackboard hung on the side of the other ship—the Australasian , on its way from the Cape—at first not a word was spoken. Then, slowly, some people began expressing their desire for vengeance at Penn Symons’s death; others, including Churchill, were simply anxious that the fighting would not be over before they reached South Africa.
The remainder of the voyage was passed in heavy anticipation. The deck games of cricket and tug-of-war lost their gaiety, and people began packing, and sharpening their rusted swords. A special machine—somewhat like a bicycle, with a grindstone for a wheel—was brought out on deck for this purpose. As farrier, Perry Barnes was called upon to do the work, and by the time he had put an edge on 600 swords, he was
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