THE RECLUSE
hoose be mine, t’ Lord be praised … an’ as long as he spares me, Tony, I’ll not see Rosa Blencarn set foot inside it.” The same sort of solidity makes Anthony at odds with her. This story is faintly reminiscent of “The Return of the Native”; Mrs. Garstin, “stalwart almost despite her years”, derives in strength of purpose, not wickedness, from Heathcliff in “Wuthering Heights”. She would have dominated any person, anywhere.
“Trevor Perkins”, second of hte three, stresses the element of sex. Trevor, who loves a waitress in a bunshop, is typical of his kind. Here again we see how easily and with what deliberation Crackanthorpe can conjure up and clarify a situation at hand.
The last story, “The Turn of the Wheel,” is weak and fine-spun in spite of its inordinate length. It gives us nothing new, but the description of London society is good. The rebellious daughter who worships her father but despises her deserted mother reveals with perhaps too much fidelity the complexities that force themselves into Crackanthorpe’s characters. Yet their lives are lines, pure and severe, like Crackanthorpe’s own, that run with no deviation straight to an end.
The re-discovery of Herman Melville, of Ambrose Bierce and (thanks to Thomas Beer) of Stephen Crane, leads one to hope that not so far in the future will come the recognition of one who wrote not only with consummate courage but who—more than any one else of his time or period—showed unmistakable signs of a superlative talent. “He was one of those who fight well, who fight unselfishly, the knights errant of the idea,” says Arthur Symons.
