23/29 Still, the Appendix is a pity. Great is plot, though Borrow has but little, and that little mechanical; delightful is incident, and Borrow is full of incident--e.g. the poisoning scene in Chapter LXXI., where will you match it, unless it be the very differently-treated scene of the robbers' cave in _The Heart of Midlothian_? 'If a book be eloquent,' says Mr.Stevenson, that most distinguished writer, 'its words run thenceforward in our ears like the noise of breakers.' Eloquence is a little unfashionable just now. |