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"Poor old Dunman," said Tite, "he was so kind to us all, and tried so much to relieve our sufferings and make us feel contented that we all liked him, and felt his death was a severe loss to us. There was something so terrible in the story of his life that we used to talk about it at night, and fancy all sorts of strange spirits haunting the place where his money was buried. It was this that made us all impatient to get away from the dreary place. Three or four days after we had buried him, we removed the stones he said the gold was buried under, and there found, as he had told us, bags and boxes of gold and silver, in bars and coin of various kinds, heavy silver and gold ornaments that had been plundered from churches and convents, with pearls and diamonds and other precious stones, enough to fill two iron chests two feet square and two feet deep. There was the thought that it was the price of so much crime. And what good after all was this gold and silver to do us, if we were to die on the island, like old Dunman? We divided it among us, just as we would something of little value, not caring which got the biggest portion. Then, after keeping out what we thought we might want, each buried his part in separate spots, and marked the places with piles of big stones.

There is something in the Anglo-Saxon temperament which is on the whole unfavourable to movements and groups; the great figures of the Victorian time in art and literature have been solitary men, anarchical as regards tradition, strongly individualistic, working on their own lines without much regard for schools or conventions. The Anglo-Saxon is deferential, but not imitative; he has a fancy for doing things in his own way. Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, Byron-were there ever four contemporary poets so little affected by one another's work? Think of the phrase in which Scott summed up his artistic creed, saying that he had succeeded, in so far as he had succeeded, by a "hurried frankness of composition," which was meant to please young and eager people. It is true that Wordsworth had a solemn majesty about his work, practised a sort of priestly function, never averse to entertaining ardent visitors by conducting them about his grounds, and showing them where certain poems had been engendered. But Wordsworth, as Fitz-Gerald truly said, was proud, not vain--proud like the high-hung cloud or the solitary peak. He felt his responsibility, and desired to be felt rather than to be applauded.

• Tolkien and Middle-earth - Tolkien Essays
• Tolkien and Middle-earth - Tolkien Essays
• Tolkien and Middle-earth - Tolkien Essays
• Tolkien and Middle-earth - Tolkien Essays
• Tolkien and Middle-earth - Tolkien Essays
• Tolkien and Middle-earth - Tolkien Essays
• Tolkien and Middle-earth - Tolkien Essays
• Tolkien and Middle-earth - Tolkien Essays

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