she says with instant anxiety, and I soothe her by assurances, and retire advising her to read on, just to see if she can find out how he misleads the public.
"'h, I may take a look at it again by and by,' she says indifferently, but nevertheless the probability is that as the door shuts the book opens, as if by some mechanical contrivance. I remember how she read Treasure Island, holding it close to the ribs of the fire (because she could not spare a moment to rise and light the gas), and how, when bedtime came, and we coaxed, remonstrated, scolded, she said quite fiercely, clinging to the book, 'I dinna lay my head on a pillow this night till I see how that laddie got out of the barrel.'"—J. M. Barrie's Margaret Ogilvy.
"Of Treasure Island itself one finds it difficult to speak the unexaggerated word. That the subject itself and many of its details were reminiscential with Stevenson matters not. It is the unique fusion of incident and character-interest that makes the book so remarkable. It is action, action, action, from the first sentence to the last. Yet every one who plays his part in the action is as deeply characterized as if he were the centre of an introspective novel. It is not alone the sea cook himself; there is not a single person whose name is given in the book whose character we do not know almost as well, if not as thoroughly, as that versatile villain. From Billy Bones to George Merry they are characterized with a firmness of touch and certainty of vision equal to Phil May's."[1]—Joseph Jacobs, The Athenaeum, December 22, 1894.
"His fancy, light and quick as a child's, made of the world around him an enchanted pleasure. The realism, as it is called, that deals only with the banalities and squalors of life, and weaves into the mesh of its story no character but would make you yawn if you passed ten minutes with him in a railway carriage, might well take a lesson from this man, if it had the brains. ............. "The most remarkable feature of the work he has left is its
- ↑ Phil May was an able and distinguished cartoonist.
