human
Mr. Anthony Hope is a striking exemplification of the fact that the talent and quality that are within a man will force themselves out, no matter how circumstances may combine and conspire to keep them under. This quiet, unassuming, low-voiced man, who, with a life of almost mechanical regularity, writes amid uninspiring surroundings, who has experienced neither the stress nor the stir of the world, but has rather progressed under quelling influences, is Anthony Hope. Anthony Hope, who from his imagination draws adventure of a keenest _Sturm und Drang_, and reticent himself, has put into the mouths of a legion of spiritual children of his own, let loose over English-speaking lands, the wit and _verve_ and brilliance of conversation which, in society, we listen for in vain, and can only hear in faintest echo from the few stages for which the acknowledged masters write--a sparkling company of talkers, who with their pleasant and inspiring sayings have belied those who have sung cynical requiem over the art which chiefly charms this poor life of ours and is its greatest happiness, the art of conversation. And it is from a house at the bottom of a gloomy London _cul-de-sac_, under the gray mist of the Thames, and in an atmosphere of headache and _ennui_, that this sparkle which has overflowed the English-speaking world goes forth.
gpt
Mr. Hope has been rapidly recognized by critics and by the general public as the cleverest and most entertaining of our latest-born novelists.
human
All his work impresses with qualities to mark a rarely cultivated mind and art.
gpt
Mr. Hope is a master at the work. His construction is in every way admirable. He lays an excellent foundation in the choice of his other characters, and then he marshals his incidents with consummate art.
human
It is a great achievement nowadays to be entertaining, and that Mr. Hope is, in his lively, fantastic, dramatic, impossible little stories.