But When He Got Back To London He Found So
Many Other Tasks Awaiting Him That Were So Far More Pressing,
That This Part Of His Purpose Was But Very Imperfectly Carried
Out.
The Letters appeared pretty much as he wrote them.
Their
social and documentary value is thereby considerably enhanced,
for they were nearly all written close down to the facts. The
original intention had been to go to Montpellier, which was
still, I suppose, the most popular health resort in Southern
Europe. The peace of 1763 opened the way. And this brings us to
another feature of distinction in regard to Smollett's Travels.
Typical Briton, perfervid Protestant of Britain's most Protestant
period, and insular enrage though he doubtless was, Smollett had
knocked about the world a good deal and had also seen something
of the continent of Europe. He was not prepared to see everything
couleur de rose now. His was quite unlike the frame of mind of
the ordinary holiday-seeker, who, partly from a voluntary
optimism, and partly from the change of food and habit, the
exhilaration caused by novel surroundings, and timidity at the
unaccustomed sounds he hears in his ears, is determined to be
pleased with everything. Very temperamental was Smollett, and his
frame of mind at the time was that of one determined to be
pleased with nothing. We know little enough about Smollett
intime. Only the other day I learned that the majority of so-
called Smollett portraits are not presentments of the novelist at
all, but ingeniously altered plates of George Washington.
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