s a contributor
to its little-read pages, and I came one day upon an article entitled
'Pompa Mortis.' This article was written in such astonishingly good
English, so clean, so hardbitten and terse, and yet so graceful, that
I could not resist the temptation to ask its author's name. My editor
modestly acknowledged it for his own, and when I told him what I
thought of its style he confessed to a close study of Defoe and a great
admiration for him. I saw nothing more from his hand until I read 'The
Wreck of the Grosvenor,' the first of that series of sea stories which
has carried Mr. Russell's name about the world. An armchair voyage with
Russell is almost as good as the real thing, and sometimes (as when the
perils and distresses of shipwreck are in question) a great deal better.
Had any man ever such an eye for the sea before, or such a power of
bringing it to the sight of another? Few readers, I fancy, care a copper
for his fable, or very much for his characters, except for the mere
moment when they move in the page; but his descriptions of sky and sea
linger in the mind like things actually seen. They are so sharp, so
vivid, so detailed, so true, that a marine painter might work from them.
And the really remarkable thing about them is the infinite variety of
these seascapes and skyscapes. He seems never to repeat himself. He is
various as the seas and skies he paints. One figures his mind as some
sort of marvellous picture gallery. He veritably sees things, and he
makes the reader see them. And all the strange and curious sea jargon,
of which not one landsman in a thousand understands anything--combings
and back-stays and dead-eyes, and the rest of it--takes a salt smack
of romance in his lips. He can be as technical as he pleases, and the
reader takes him on faith, and rollicks along with him, bewildered,
possibly, but trusting and happy. And Clark Russell has not only been
charming. He has been useful, too, and Foc'sle Jack owes him a debt
of gratitude. For though he does not shine as a draughtsman where the
subtleties of character are concerned, he knows Jack, who is not much of
a metaphysical puzzle, inside and out, and he has brought him home to us
as no sea-writer ever tried to do before. Years ago it seemed natural to
fancy that he might write himself out, but he goes on with a freshness
which looks inexhaustible. If I cannot read him with the old enjoyment
it is my misfortune and not his fault. If his latest boo