DOI Artikel:
Noble, James Ashcroft: Mr. Stevenson's Forerunner
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21805#0135
By James Ashcroft Noble 13 i
Windows here, and struck warmly on the faces of the hinds coming
home from the fields. The mighty storm that raged while Cromwell
lay a-dying, made all the oak-woods groan round about here, and tore
the thatch from the very roofs that I gaze upon. When I think
of this I can almost, so to speak, lay my hand upon Shakspeare
and upon Cromwell. These poor walls were contemporaries of
both, and I find something affecting in the thought. The mere
soil is, of course, full older than either, but it does not touch one in
the same way. A wall is the creation of a human hand ; the soil is
not.”
Smith’s picturesqueness is fully in evidence here, though the
passage was not quoted to illustrate it. Indeed, there are few
writers who satisfy so largely the visual sense of the imagination.
Even his literary appraisements—witness the essays on Dunbar
and Chaucer, and that charming paper “ A Shelf in my Book-
case ”—have a pictorial quality, as if he must see something as
well as think something. Here is Dreamthorp where the essayist,
the transfigured Alexander Smith—“Smith’s Smith” as the
Autocrat of the Breakfast-table would put it—lives his ideal life :
“ This place suits my whim, and I like it better year after year.
As with everything eise, since I began to love it I find it growing
beautiful. Dreamthorp—a castle, a chapel, a lake, a straggling strip
of grey houses, with a blue film of smoke over all—lies embosomed in
emerald. Summer with its daisies runs up to every cottage door.
From the little height where I am now sitting I see it beneath me.
Nothing could be more peaceful. The wind and the birds fly over
it. A passing sunbeam makes brilliant a white gable-end, and brings
out the colours of the blossomed apple-tree beyond, and disappears. I
see figures in the Street, but hear thern not. The hands on the church
clock seem always pointing to one hour. Time has fallen asleep in
the afternoon sunshine. I make a frame of my fingers and look at
Windows here, and struck warmly on the faces of the hinds coming
home from the fields. The mighty storm that raged while Cromwell
lay a-dying, made all the oak-woods groan round about here, and tore
the thatch from the very roofs that I gaze upon. When I think
of this I can almost, so to speak, lay my hand upon Shakspeare
and upon Cromwell. These poor walls were contemporaries of
both, and I find something affecting in the thought. The mere
soil is, of course, full older than either, but it does not touch one in
the same way. A wall is the creation of a human hand ; the soil is
not.”
Smith’s picturesqueness is fully in evidence here, though the
passage was not quoted to illustrate it. Indeed, there are few
writers who satisfy so largely the visual sense of the imagination.
Even his literary appraisements—witness the essays on Dunbar
and Chaucer, and that charming paper “ A Shelf in my Book-
case ”—have a pictorial quality, as if he must see something as
well as think something. Here is Dreamthorp where the essayist,
the transfigured Alexander Smith—“Smith’s Smith” as the
Autocrat of the Breakfast-table would put it—lives his ideal life :
“ This place suits my whim, and I like it better year after year.
As with everything eise, since I began to love it I find it growing
beautiful. Dreamthorp—a castle, a chapel, a lake, a straggling strip
of grey houses, with a blue film of smoke over all—lies embosomed in
emerald. Summer with its daisies runs up to every cottage door.
From the little height where I am now sitting I see it beneath me.
Nothing could be more peaceful. The wind and the birds fly over
it. A passing sunbeam makes brilliant a white gable-end, and brings
out the colours of the blossomed apple-tree beyond, and disappears. I
see figures in the Street, but hear thern not. The hands on the church
clock seem always pointing to one hour. Time has fallen asleep in
the afternoon sunshine. I make a frame of my fingers and look at