In His Case He Wrote Long Letters On The Spot
To His Medical And Other Friends At Home.
When he got back in the
summer of 1765 one of his first cares was to put the Letters
together.
It had always been his intention carefully to revise
them for the press. 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. An
interesting confirmation of this is to be found in the recently
published Letters of Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe to Robert
Chambers. "Smollett wore black cloaths - a tall man - and extreamly
handsome. No picture of him is known to be extant - all that have
been foisted on the public as such his relations disclaim - this I
know from my aunt Mrs. Smollett, who was the wife of his nephew,
and resided with him at Bath." But one thing we do know, and in
these same letters, if confirmation had been needed, we observe
the statement repeated, namely, that Smollett was very peevish. A
sardonic, satirical, and indeed decidedly gloomy mood or temper
had become so habitual in him as to transform the man. Originally
gay and debonnair, his native character had been so overlaid that
when he first returned to Scotland in 1755 his own mother could
not recognise him until he "gave over glooming" and put on his
old bright smile. [A pleasant story of the Doctor's mother is
given in the same Letters to R. Chambers (1904). She is described
as an ill-natured-looking woman with a high nose, but not a bad
temper, and very fond of the cards.
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