The Novelist of the Sea.

Manawatu Herald, Volume III, Issue III, 18 March 1890, Page 2

The Novelist of the Sea.

ax ixtp-'View wr.ca Mr Olaek EuSIjELL. Deal ! Briny, quaint, old'fashioned historical Deal! Peal, with its grumbling, cantankerous, loafing; quid-chewing. yarn-spinning, ; hut altogether delightful fishermen and 'longshoremen; its shingle, its galleys and higgers, and rows of "cap* stans and" serpentine coils- of chains Deal, -with all its history, its legend, of Csesar and St Augustine for both lane! ed here in the Sim and distant pai'fc. Deal, upon whose beach where driven thirty Spanish galleons by the fieroe Van Tromp ; whe.e Black- eyed Susan kissed her love good-bye, and where Lord Nelson, on board the Medusa, awaited Napoleon's threatened invasion. It was in suoh thoroughly sympathetic surroundings (writes a representative-) 'that I. found our great English nautical noveMst meditating, 'as he gazed from his wide-viewing •windows upon the everehanging and yet e'ver/etenial

aeftv^i^t.dowft.b^iaQ^tewaPi 1 . looked down,, upon the waters as thevl^A geuUr uuon the beach daiosrfmmedia^be^athus. .-,. Ailast, I broke the si iFuee-: » : Come me a yarn ; toll me : how you with almost the WeirJnessof a uei man folk/lore story ■<»•&& a^ ±U t l heavtstopping power of ' The Ancie,t Mariner;' writo these soa stories of yours?"- ' Well, one thins I'cau truthfully say, v> ™ all from my own personal experience I went to sea as a middy m one oi the old Blackwall linem at; thirteen ( roars of age. I w.is all through the . China war, on board the old- Hugo., mont, and that reminds me I- W^ saw her towed clown the Channel a^ few .weeks ago,;- L recognized -her at once. I have been nearly all over thjj "wor^an my &W\ # .M 1 f W™ : exactly what' I *iwn * writing a'lout . _^^«^i

vhen I decribe the sea and things nautical. And let me tell you it is difficult enough to manoeuvre a ship on the water, but to manceuvre her On paper, that takes some doing. My plan is always to endeavour to place myself and my readers upon the ship's deck. Critics say there is too much sea and sky in my novels "but what would you ? It is exactly as at sea. I remember, " he went on explaining to me the manner in ■which he always accurately • de* scribed that which he saw, " that I would notice everything and I pos* sessed the capacity for. blending. For instance, take that white gull floating there on tremulous wing that is the object of interest, now I group all my effect round that bird. I would note the mirage I saw, the haze, the shimmer, the water, the uplifted vessel. I harmonize atmo ipheric effects with material objects, and then your untravelled critic falls foul of me for desciibing perhaps an Arctic sunrise, which he never saw upon Peckhanvßye. But the difficulty in writing about the sea does not coDsist in mere description of clouds and waves and sunsets ; it is a far greater difficulty to sail the ship itself upon paper."

" Hew came you, Mr Kussell," I asked, when the toy's ringing laugh had died away, " how came you, a practical sailor, to take to novel writing ?" — " Well, the taste for writing first came to me in a very curious manner at sea. We were homeward bound from Sydney, and when abreast of the Horn I was washing down the decks when the batten hencoop was discovered miss 1 ing. The captain told me to look for it. I couldn't find if, whereupon the captain grew angry. I was 1 cheeky, 1 and so the captain ordered me below, bread aud water and irons, a prisoner for the rest of the voyage. Having naught to do, I took to reading Tom Moore, and that started me to the writing of poetry. I didn't go to sea again. I wiote drama— l Fra Angelo'— in 1866, which was produced by Walter Montgomery, performed at the Hay. market, and which proved a great failure. Mr Fechter, wio had seen this piece of mine, asked n>e to translate the ' Corsican Bi others' for him. He wanted his part done in blank verse, but when it was recited to Dickens he strongly objected. But I gay« up writing tragedies ; one was quite enough for me. I then wrote ' John Houldsworth, Chief Mate ' ; that was my first nautical novel . Then a well'known publisher asked me to write one for him, and * The Wreck of the Grosvenor, was my response to his request. How ever, his reader returned it with the remark that it was merely a catalogue of ship's furniture. It was accepted by Marston. My friends sometimes try and tempt me ashore ' No,' I say, ' lam webfooted and I shall stick to the sea.' My object is to keep the standard elevated. Ab a lule, sea stories are only written for boys, and yet England, which is a great maritime country, possesses no great sea novelist."

I loudly demurred : "Mr Russell, you are fishing ; however, let that pass — are your stories founded on fact?" — (t Yes, very often; for inBtance, I once read in the papers of a mutiny at sea, in which the steward had thrown over a bottle j containing an account of it. I pon* I dered over that, until finally I wrecked, the Grosvenor. • The Sea Queen ' was suggested by the tru e Btory of a captain's wife, who was on board a steamer, and all the crew, except the cap am and mate, fell ill. They worked in. the engineroom, she steered and brought the vessel into the haven where they would be. This sea-novel'wrifcing vocation is very dear to me. All my sailors are men I have m^t in the foc'sle, kept watch with, gone aloft; with ; they are a fast dying type in this age of steamers. And how vast a distinction there is between the bluejacket and the merchantman ! The one lithe, active as a cat, ful! of his discipline; the other slow, gtumV ling, discontented, full of bad food and constant complaint. Half the profanity of poor Jack ia to be found in the filthy scuttle-butt and the fouler haraes3cask (anglice, the drinking tin and food cask ). No, there is not nearly so much bullying as there used to be, except in those beastly Nova Scotian ships. They are dreadful. Have you seen this?" placing in my hand the last book— of which there were only twenty 'five copie* published — written by Her 1 man Melville, that magnificent American sea.novelist. " ' John Alarr, an\ other Saiors, he cal 8 it, and he has been good enough to dedicate it to me." With great interest I took up the dainty, little book by the author of " Omeo " and other exquisite S)uth :- eft sketches. And what had he to sny of Mr . Cl*rk Russell? Wl-y thi — " « The Wren 1 - of the Gr ttvenor' entitles the author to the naval] cro.vn in current i'erature Upon the Grosvenor's firs . appearanon in these waters I was goin g to say-all competant judres exclaimed c eh after his own fashion, something to this effect : the v^iy epi of the br'ne in our face I What writer, so tharoughly aa this me, knows the sea, and tho blue water of it ; the sailor anl the heart of hi n ; the ship, too, and tha sailing and handling of a ship?"