Now no one, of
course, can be entirely indifferent to the audience he strives to
please; and it would seem, then, that that daring which is the first
element of success arises here from innate capacity. Unconsciously, as
we have said, is it that our author is self-betrayed, for he is by
nature so peculiarly a _raconteur_ that he forgets himself entirely in
seizing the prominent points of his story; and it is to this that his
chief fault is attributable,--the want of elaboration,--a fault,
however, which he has greatly overcome in his later books, where,
leaving sketchy outlines, he has given us one or two complete and
perfect pictures. His style, too, owes some slight debt to this fact;
it has been saved thereby from offensive mannerism, and yet given traits
of its own insusceptible of imitation,--for by mannerism we mean
affectations of language, not absurdities of type.
There is a racy _verve_ and vigor in Charles Reade's style, which, after
the current inanities, is as inspiriting as a fine breeze on the upland;
it tingles with vitality; he seems to bring to his work a superb
physical strength, which he employs impartially in the statement of a
trifle or the storming of a city; and if on this page he handles a ship
in a sea-fight with the skill and force of a Viking, on the other he
picks up a pin cleaner of the adjacent dust than weaker fingers would do
it.
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