iticise the author, as he goes, "because," says he, comparing
it with another work, "_I have been a child, but I have never been on a
quest for buried treasure_." Here, is, indeed, a wilful paradox; for if
he has never been on a quest for buried treasure, it can be demonstrated
that he has never been a child. There never was a child (unless Master
James) but has hunted gold, and been a pirate, and a military commander,
and a bandit of the mountains; but has fought, and suffered shipwreck
and prison, and imbrued its little hands in gore, and gallantly
retrieved the lost battle, and triumphantly protected innocence and
beauty. Elsewhere in his essay Mr. James has protested with excellent
reason against too narrow a conception of experience; for the born
artist, he contends, the "faintest hints of life" are converted into
revelations; and it will be found true, I believe, in a majority of
cases, that the artist writes with more gusto and effect of those things
which he has only wished to do, than of those which he has done. Desire
is a wonderful telescope, and Pisgah the best observatory. Now, while it
is true that neither Mr. James nor the author of the work in question
has ever, in the fleshly sense, gone questing after gold, it is probable
that both have ardently desired and fondly imagined the details of such
a life in youthful day-dreams; and the author, counting upon that, and
well aware (cunning and low-minded man!) that this class of interest,
having been frequently treated, finds a readily accessible and beaten
road to the sympathies of the reader, addressed himself throughout to
the building up and circumstantiation of this boyish dream. Character
to the boy is a sealed book; for him, a pirate is a beard, a pair of
wide trousers and a liberal complement of pistols. The author, for the
sake of circumstantiation and because he was himself more or less grown
up, admitted character, within certain limits, into his design; but only
within certain limits. Had the same puppets figured in a scheme of
another sort, they had been drawn to very different purpose; for in this
elementary novel of adventure, the characters need to be presented with
but one class of qualities--the warlike and formidable. So as they
appear insidious in deceit and fatal in the combat, they have served
their end. Danger is the matter with which this class of novel deals;
fear, the passion with which it idly trifles; and the characters are
portrayed