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pursued like "an invulnerable football," the oppressive horror of the subterranean recesses, the mischievous pleasantry of the Gulchenrouz idyll reveal different facets of Beckford's ever-varying temper. In _Vathek_, Beckford found expression not only for his devotion to the Eastern outlook on life, but also for his own strangely coloured, vehement personality. The interpreter walks ever at our elbow whispering into our ear his human commentary on Vathek's astounding adventures. Beckford's pictures are remarkable for definite precision of outline. There are no vague hints and suggestions, no lurking shadows concealing untold horrors. The quaint dwarfs perched on Vathek's shoulders, the children chasing blue butterflies, Nouronihar and her maidens on tiptoe, with their hair floating in the breeze, stand out in clear relief, as if painted on a fresco. The imagery is so lucid that we are able to follow with effortless pleasure the intricate windings of a plot which at Beckford's whim twists and turns through scenes of wonderful variety. Amid his wild, erratic excursions he never loses sight of the end in view; the story, with all its vagaries, is perfectly coherent. This we should expect from one who "loved to bark a tough understanding."[72] It is the intellectual strength and exuberant vitality behind Beckford's Oriental scenes that lend them distinction and power. _The History of the Caliph Vathek_ did not set a fashion. It is true that the Orient sometimes formed the setting of nineteenth century novels, as in Disraeli's _Alvoy_ (1833), where for a brief moment, when the hero's torch is extinguished by bats on his entry into subterranean portals, we find ourselves in the abode of wonder and terror; but not till Meredith's _Shaving of Shagpal_ (1856) do we meet again Beckford's kinship with the East, and his gift for fantastic burlesque. CHAPTER VI - GODWIN AND THE ROSICRUCIAN NOVEL. When Miss Austen was asked to write a historical romance "illustrative of the house of Coburg," she airily dismissed the suggestion, pleading mirthfully: "I could not sit down seriously to write a serious romance under any other motive than to save my life, and if it were indispensable for me to keep it up and never relax into laughing at myself or at other people I am sure I should be hung before I had finished the first chapter."[73] If Godwin had been confronted with the same offer,
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