MR. W. CLARK-RUSSELL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9082, 16 June 1888, Page 3 (Supplement)

MR. W. CLARK-RUSSELL.

««THE DEATH SHIP. , * , v A FAMOUS NOVELIST. 'tTSE London Echo has the following :— 11 Though very few novels are more widely tead either here or in America than those of Mr. W- Clark-Russell, he is one of the literary figures of the day about whom not much is known. There are several reasons for this. He lives, in the first place, away from smoky, cramping London, down at Eamsgatei From his drawingroom window etretcnes a glorious expanse of unresting blue water, broken in one place by a line of eurf that plays over many a seaman's grave. Then the hardships of his youth on board the Duncan Dunbar, and other merchantmen, may have been one of the causes of the terrible form of rheumatism to which he is a martyr. It may eound strange to say that he does not actually write one line of his own books. They are all dictated to his son ; and as this form of composition usually tends to prolixity, it is no noticeable feature that Sir. Clark-Russell's style is so concentrated and clear. And lastly there is his particular dislike to anything approaching self-advertisement or interviewing. It is only an especial favour on his part which furnished material for tin's sketch for the Echo. " If," says he, "interviewing were confined to great men, to the Tennysons or the Carlyles, it would be an honour to be appreciated. But when every little fourth-rate actress gets her column of question and answer, and when a daily paper seriously gives its readers the opinions and remarks of the author of " Two Lovely Black Eyes," it is derogatory to the dignity of a great profession to be included in such company. Mr. Clark-Russell, though an Englishman, svas born at the Carlton House, New York, in 1844. His literary pedigree is an honourable one, for his mother had been a member of that distinguished set in which Wordsworth, Coleridge. Dβ Quincey, and Charles Lamb moved. His father was Mr. Henry Russell, well known as a writer of some of the most stirring songs in the language, such as " A Life on the Ocean TV'ave," "Cheer Boys, Cheer," '"Man the Lifeboat," etc., and was a noble advocate of anti-slavery in the States, as well as a promoter of the emigration of English labourers to America. He spent a short j time at Winchester School, after having been at a private school at Boulogne, and iiaving there as schoolfellows three sons of Charles Dickens. On one occasion he and i rne of these boys—Frank by name—planned to run away from tho establishment, and po to Norway, duck-shooting I It had a practical reason an fond, as they calculated upon ranking fabulous profits on the sale of the feathers. The great scheme was only frustrated by a sudden change of .Tvlast/.-r Frank's plans from home. At 13J lie went to sea as a midshipman, and endured all the privations that soon sicken a lad of the career. Salt junk, and greasy waiter, " with yellow shot floating in it, and i called pea soup," and biscuits full of worms, fuvre his diet. He relates how the latter were first shaken, and he then plunged into boiling tea, "to bring the weevils out.' . But. he stuck to it for eight years, and then tried business. First he went into a bank, then on the Stock Exchange; but his memory, as he states, was not for fractions, and it was hardly a successful trial. " Lalla TSookh," of all works irythe world, gave him his inspiration for writing ; and his first Work was a novel called "Life's Masquertide," and then wrote a five-act blank-verse tragedy, which equally did not bring him "fame. His next literary stage was journalism, and, after a connection with two defunct papers—the Lcndon Review and the Leader —he joined the Newcastle Chronicle, under Mr. Joseph Cowen. But by this time he had married his charming ■wife, a daughter of Mr. D. J. Henry, the engineer, and his novels had fallen into the dehnite lines we now associate with his name. The " Wreck of the Grosvenor" ?ed the way. " Take my word for it," says Mr. Russell, "the sailor is the least nautical man you can find. He never hitches up his trousers, talks mere technique, and shouts Sea son£:3 ashore. No; he wears a black coat, tall hat, gloves, and carries an umbrella whenever he can." And it is the perfect knowledge of sailors and their ways of thinking, ships, and the sea that makes Mr. Clark-Russell one of the truest realists Df the day. He has been termed " the modern Marryat." The designation is misleading. He has taken up the merchant service as Yds, theme, and of course parts company with Marryat at once from that fact, who only depicted the Royal Navy. But the book that will bring out the clear distinction between the two men in all its force will be "The Death Ship." [Thistale will becommenced in next Wednesday's Herald, and will be continued each Wednesday till the conclusion of the novel.] There 13 considerable inconsistency in Marryat's treatment of the famous "Flying Dutchman" legend. He confounds the material with the immaterial. At one moment a vessel passes through the filmy shade of the phantom ship, and at another, Philip Vanderdecken is standing, a creature of flesh and blood, on an oaken deck. Now, Mr. Clark-Russell has adopted the fascinating story, and has gn _ en it a most distinctive and original reading. The idea to do it came to him on board the Spartan, s.s., of the Union Company, to windward of the Cape, whither he had gone some two years ego on a voyage in hopes of benefitting his rheumatism. There was a fearful but magnificent thunderstorm, raging over the land, and as he was leaning over the side of the vessel, it occurred to him, " Why, it ■was just here that old Phillip Vanderdecken laid the curse upon himself;" and he set himself to see how far the old tale could be adapted to modern views. He portrays all liis characters on board the accursed vessel at the age at which they died. There is Phillip, the stern, determined shipmaster, a man of fifty ; there is the old salt, and the little cabin boy, exactly at that period of their lives when death spiritualised their bodies for eternity In the same way, the ship itself has not grown old, but has been frozen into an immortality by the majestic hand of doom. Very weird and intensely powerful this story ■w ill be. Mr. Clarke-Russell spares no pains to fcnsure accuracy, and almost invariably draw 3 his descriptions from his own experiences and recollections. One of the most vivid pieces of writing in English is his description of the awful wreck of the Indian Chief, off Ramsgate, a few year 3 ago, which he contributed to a daily paper at the time, and which brought in £800 for the noble crew of the Ramsgate Lifeboat. The ship had run aground on the Long Sand, and the sea was so rough that It seemed irr possible to help her. But out of her crew of twenty-nine, eleven were saved, and they landed, in Mr. ClarkRussell's ov>-n words, " the saddest procession it was ever my lot to behold—eleven bruised and broken men, and they walked with bowed backs, drooping heads, and nerveless arms. There was blood on the faces of some, circled with a white incrustation of salt, and the salt filled the hollows of their eyes and streaked their hair with lines that looked like snow." He learnt the whole tale of suffering from the mate— how the crew had lashed themselves to the masts ; how the captain had sent home with his watch and chain a message to his wife too sacred to write down ; how in the cold, and wind piercing like sharp arrows, the second mate tried to shield his frailer younger brother, and then how the mizenmast had bent and snapped, and those on the other masts had watched their comrades drowning, utterly unable to give them a helping nand. Then he told of the brave lifeboat's endeavours, and how gallantly she had brought in all that remained alive, including the poor second mate,who was then a maniac, and died shortly after rescue. When the thrilling story was written, he thought he would like to test its accuracy by reading ib over to Charlie Fish, the intrepid coxswain of the lifeboat. He paused near the end, and asked, " Well, Fish, will that do?" and the brave old salt tells all he could reply was, "Do? Great God, look at that, sir !" And he opened his tightly-clenched hands, and pointed to the beads of perspiration on them. He had lived the whole fearful scene over again, as Mr. Clark-Russell read, and he added, " I couldn't get the fixod eyes of the dead captain out of my sight, and I used to lie awake, Sir, for hours of a night, and so did Tom Cooper and the rest of us, seeing the bodies torn by the spars, and floating alongside the miserable ship." When I came in, I mentioned Fish*3 expressive enthusiasm to Mr. Clark-Russell, and his quiet reply was, "I value that man' 9 simple words more than any other compliment) I have ever had in my life."