" LORNA DOONE "
IT is just a hundred years this very week since Black- more the novelist was born, and twenty-five years since he died. None of his many books survived him except Lorna Doone, which perhaps is immortal. It has often been said that any man with any capacity for letters has it in him to write one romance, to fill one book out of his own experience. Blackmore filled three Victorian volumes, filled them to the brim out of his own heart and fancy, and then from the point of view of the literary critic he had said his last word.
Though Blackmore wrote of Devonshire in a manner to entrance Devonshire men he did not by right belong to that great county. He was brought up at Newton Nottage on the coast of Glamorganshire, whence across the Severn he could see the dark heights of Exmoor. At about twelve years old he went to school at " Blun- dells," Tiverton, and there no doubt he heard the legends and learned the dialect which were to make real the land of his dreams. He led the quietest of quiet lives, a fruit farmer for love of the work, a novelist for a livelihood.
But if Lorna Doone appealed especially to Devonshire men, it did not appeal to them alone. Written in Black- more's study at Teddington looking out on the market garden in which he laboured more than half his time, its attraction depended upon no local knowledge. . It is impossible to read of John Ridd the hero, and not feel certain that Blackmore is writing largely about himself. True, he puts the time back and talks of James IL and Judge Jeffreys, and pretends a little ignorance, but that is necessary to the story. The outlaws who housed themselves in the Exmoor fastnesses and the lesser gentlemen of the road who are necessary to his plot could not have lived much later. It is not a historical novel, however ; the people in it who belong to the past are puppets pushed about with admirable skill. Blackmore's real genius shows, not in their manipulation, but in the study of the eternal farmer who belongs to all time and whose blood Blackmore felt in his own veins. In spite of his adventures, which are, so to speak, super- imposed upon his tale, John Ridd lived a quiet life among a few people, some of whom he loved, all of whom he tolerated, describing with humour and delight their " unsuspicious manners, free good will, and hearty noise of laughing." Life in a town was unbearable to him. He felt, he tells us, "like a horse in a lime kiln." His keenest happiness came to him from working with nature, doing the little that man can do towards making something grow. He thought, as he worked, of his love for the beautiful girl he saw so seldom, " dwelt upon it sideways," as he says, giving his direct attention to his corn and his beasts, and wondering at intervals " what we should call our children." When things went badly with him he sought consolation in labours and food and weariness. For definite pleasure he was satisfied with meetings of neighbours for eating, drinking and singing. On these occasions some drank too much and some did not. John Ridd had been to school and looked, since he was a boy, to marrying above him. He never got drunk even at a Harvest Supper, but he felt no contempt for the good fellows who enjoyed themselves with less moderation and " were thankful in the morning for what they could remember." His attitude towards God, towards women and towards his " hands " is a noble one. For high birth he has a humorous indulgence. Considering their fine qualities and good looks they have in his eyes a right to their pride. Of the clergy he had a poor opinion, but a deep and inarticulate reverence for the God who made the world and taught men to forgive is never absent from his mind. Next to Lorna, whom he worships and who has every possible virtue and grace, but does not really live, he cares for his sister Annie who was " made for loving and cooking " but who would marry the High-Way man ! Clever women he thought were always bitter-tongued. He excuses a love of reading and a shrewish wit in his youngest sister, who " had not our gait and port " on the ground that his mother fell down on the ice before she was born. He loved his mother for her sentimental kindness and her adoration for himself, though as a good son he felt he " deserved it." Also he loved her because " she thought me innocent though God knows I never was that." He confesses his own vanity with a kind of frank humility which is wholly masculine and lovable. He thought a man should love once but may flirt " to keep his hand in." He did not extend the same indulgence to women. He loved his animals and regarded the faults of the men on the farm as peculiarities to be sworn at and put up with like the weather. John Fry, his foreman, was a detestable character ; no modern " Union " could have invented a worse, but his master would as soon have thought of selling_ a stony. acre of land as of getting rid of him. John Fry was a deliberate liar and " he valued his life more than anything else, though he tried to make out that his wife was to blame." Having several children he was paid by his master beyond the sum appointed by the " justices " as a proper wage. If scolded for his extraordinary laziness he would force his employer to hold his tongue by threatening to lay information against him for overpayment. " Now I have not mentioned all this of John Fry from any disrespect to his memory (which is green and honest among us), far less from any desire to hurt the feelings of his grandchildren. I have known a great many bigger rogues and most of themselves in the number." " Simplicity," John Ridd assures us, "is no commoner in the country than in the town, though once we suspect that people have that idea of us we indulge them in it to the top of their heart and grieve that they should come out of it, as they do at last in amazement and with less money than before."
We are told that Blackmore wished that no memoir of him should be written. No novelist, surely, needs a • memoir !—least of all a man of one book. Is he not sure to tell all of himself that should be told ?
Those who would like to know more of a delightful character than can be gathered from Lorna Doane should read the last poem in the Oxford Book of Verse. It is there called anonymous, but is now known to 'be by Blackmore. It would, we think, be possible after reading it to argue that he wrote not only one novel, but one poem which will live.
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