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Updated: June 3, 2025
The specialist or particularist novel was not likely to be without practitioners during this time: in fact it might be said, after a fashion, to be more rife than ever: but it can only be glanced at here. Its most remarkable representatives perhaps men, however, of very different tastes and abilities were Richard Jefferies and Joseph Henry Shorthouse.
This superb piece of imaginative prose, of which Shorthouse himself might have been proud, is recalled by an answering note in Ryecroft, in which he says, 'I owe many a page to the street-organs. And, where the pathos has to be distilled from dialogue, I doubt if the author of Jack himself could have written anything more restrainedly touching or in a finer taste than this:
"I'm afraid I've kept you waiting, Mr. Shorthouse," he said in a pleasant voice, but with no trace of a smile in the mouth or eyes. "But the fact is, you know, I've a mania for chemistry, and just when you were announced I was at the most critical moment of a problem and was really compelled to bring it to a conclusion."
Instead of this, one gets this précieux antique style, based upon the Bible and John Bunyan, and enriched by a transparent power of tinging modern English with an ancient and secluded flavour. It shows how very little surroundings and influences have to do with the growth of an artistic instinct, because in the case of Shorthouse it seems to have been a purely spontaneous product.
The interest of Shorthouse is the interest which attaches to the blooming of a curious and exotic flower in a place where its presence is absolutely unaccountable; he probably will not maintain his hold upon the minds of a later generation, because there is no coherent system of thought in his book.
An abnormal lucidity took the place of my confusion of thought, and I suddenly understood that the two dreams which I had taken for nightmares must really have been sent me, and that I had been allowed for one moment to look over the edge of what was to come; the Good was helping, even when the Evil was most determined to destroy. I saw it all clearly now. Shorthouse had overrated his strength.
With trembling hands Shorthouse opened the front door, and they walked out into the moonlight and drew a deep breath of the cool night air blowing in from the sea. The following events occurred on a small island of isolated position in a large Canadian lake, to whose cool waters the inhabitants of Montreal and Toronto flee for rest and recreation in the hot months.
As you say, it wouldn't hold enough to feed a cat." Shorthouse was unable to suppress a cry. The muscles of his fingers, too, relaxed in spite of himself and he let the black bag drop with a bang to the floor. Garvey instantly withdrew his arm and turned with a quick movement.
Someone was coming up the stairs. The boards creaked beneath a stealthy weight. Shorthouse sprang from the chair and crossed the room swiftly, taking up his position beside the door, but out of range of the keyhole. The two candles flared unevenly on the table at the foot of the bed.
Shorthouse made appropriate answers to these remarks, but his mind was really engaged in taking stock of Mr. Sidebotham's old-time partner. So far there was no sign of mental irregularity and there was certainly nothing about him to suggest violent wrong-doing or coarseness of living. On the whole, Mr.
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