ut they are described in so matter-of-fact a style that we
"soberly acquiesce." After an hour of Godwin's grave society an
effervescent sense of humour subsides. A mind open to suggestion
is soon infected by his imperturbable seriousness, which
effectually stills "obstinate questionings." Even the brigands
who live with their philanthropic leader are accepted without
demur. After all, Raymond is only Robin Hood turned political
philosopher. The ingenious resources of _Caleb Williams_ when he
strives to elude his pursuer are part of the legitimate
stock-in-trade of the hero of a novel of adventure. He is not as
other men are, and comes through perilous escapades with
miraculous success. It is at first difficult to see why Falkland
does not realise that his plan of ceaselessly harassing his
victim is likely to force Williams to accuse him publicly, but
gradually we begin to regard his mental obliquity as one of the
decrees of fate. Falkland's obtuseness is of the same nature as
that of the sleeper who undertakes a voyage to Australia to
deliver a letter which anywhere but in a dream would have been
dropped in the nearest pillar-box. The obvious solution that
would occur to a waking mind is persistently evasive. The plot of
_Caleb Williams_ hinges on an improbability, but so does that of
_King Lear_; and if it had not been for Falkland's stupidity, the
story would have ended with the first volume. Godwin excels in
the analysis of mental conditions, but fails when he attempts to
transmute passionate feeling into words. We are conscious that he
is a cold-blooded spectator _ab extra_ striving to describe what
he has never felt for himself. It is not even "emotion
recollected in tranquillity." Men of this world, who are carried
away by scorn and anger, utter their feelings simply and
directly. Godwin's characters pause to cull their words from
dictionaries. Forester's invective, when he believes that
Williams has basely robbed his master is astonishingly elegant:
"Vile calumniator! You are the abhorrence of nature, the
opprobrium of the human species and the earth can only be freed
from an insupportable burthen by your being exterminated."[81]
The diction is so elaborately dignified that the contempt which
was meant almost to annihilate Caleb Williams, lies effectually
concealed behind a blinding veil of rhetoric. When he has leisure
to adorn, he translates the simplest, most obvious reflections
into the "jargon" of politica