Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 6.djvu/22

2 ever, monstrosities, the typical Americans of French imagination in the year 1865, drawn by the author absolutely without personal knowledge to guide him.

''But the warm reception of Verne's books in America, stimulated his sympathetic interest in our land. In 1867 he journeyed hither, and as a consequence the Americans of his later books approach more closely to being human. Moreover his youthful admiration of Englishmen was somewhat waning. Scotchmen, resentful and even bitter against their sister kingdom, hold the center of the field in "In Search of the Castaways." Captain Nemo glorifies a yet bitterer foe to England, an East Indian Prince of the great "mutiny."''

''Hence when in "The Mysterious Island" Verne was again looking for inventiveness and ingenuity, he made all five of his central characters American. Moreover he discriminated them clearly and handled them with appreciation. The sailor Pencraft, to be sure, would scarcely be recognized as an American type; and Cyrus Harding is so completely a walking cyclopaedia rather than a man that one almost wonders if Captain Nemo's secret gift to the colonists of a second cyclopaedia was not meant in sarcasm rather than in kindness. Yet here and in "The Survivors of the Chancellor" we certainly touch high water mark in our author's estimate of the American race.''