Page:Essays and phantasies by James Thomson.djvu/305

 Rh of abstruse problems, whose solutions when reached are scarcely less difficult to ordinary apprehension than are the problems themselves; discriminating countless shades where the common eye sees but one gloom or glare, pursuing countless distinct movements where the common eye sees only a whirling perplexity. As if all these heavy disqualifications were not enough, as if he were not sufficiently offensive in being original, he dares also to be wayward and wilful, not theatrically or overweeningly like Charles Reade, but freakishly and humoristically, to the open-eyed disgust of our prim public. Lastly, his plots are too carelessly spun to catch our summer flies, showing here great gaps and there a pendent entanglement; while his catastrophes are wont to outrage that most facile justice of romance which condemns all rogues to poverty and wretchedness, and rewards the virtuous with wealth and long life and flourishing large families.

In exposing his defects for the many, I have discovered some of his finest qualities for the thoughtful and imaginative few, and need now only summarise. He has a wonderful eye for form and colour, especially the latter; a wonderful ear for music and all sounds; a masterly perception of character, a most subtle sense for spiritual mysteries. His dialogue is full of life and reality, flexile and rich in the genuine unexpected, marked with the keenest distinctions, more like the bright-witted French than the slow and clumsy English. He can use brogue and baragouinage with rare accuracy and humorous effect; witness the Irish Mrs. Chump and the Greek Pericles in Emilia. Though he seldom gives way to it, he is great in the fiery record of fiery action; thus the duel in the Stelvio Pass, in Vittoria, has been scarcely equalled by any living novelist save by Charles Reade in that heroic fight with the pirates in Hard Cash. He has this sure mark of lofty