OPINIONS OF THE LONDON PRESS
ON THE WRITINGS OF THE
“NEW ENGLISH HUMORIST.”
“These delightful papers … quaint humor and remarkable literary skill and taste. Old Izaac Walton would have enjoyed them immensely; so would White of Selborne, and even Addison would have admired them. … A sympathetic power of entering into their life and hitting it off in a happy and humorous manner, with the aid of much literary culture. … In reading his loving diatribes against his furred and feathered acquaintances, one cannot help remembering that India has always been the home of the Beast Story. But since the Sanskrit Hito padesa was put together, we question whether any writer has given us such pictures of the floating population of lotus-covered tanks, and the domestic life that goes on in the great Indian trees. To Mr. Robinson, every pipal or mango tree is a many-storied house: each branch is full of vitality and intrigue, as an étage of a Parisian mansion. Snakes and toads live in a small way on the ground floor, until the arrival of the mongoose with his writ of ejectment; lizards lead a rackety, bachelor existence in the entresol; prosperous parrots occupy suites en première; cats and gray squirrels are for ever skipping up or down stairs. The higher stories are the modest abodes of the small artistic world: vocalist bulbuls and dramatic mainas rehearsing their parts. The garrets and topmost perches are peopled with poor predatory kites or vultures; from whom the light-fingered and more deeply criminal crow pilfers, not without a chuckle, their clumsily stolen supper. … Mr. Robinson is the Columbus of the banyan-tree- He sails away into its recesses and discovers new worlds. … Mr. Robinson has only to do justice to his artistic perceptions, and to his fine vein of humor in order to create for himself a unique place among the essayists of our day.” — The Academy.
“These charming little word-pictures of Indian life and Indian scenery are, so it appears to us, something more than an unusually bright page in Anglo-Indian literature … as much humor as human sympathy. … The book abounds in delightful passages; let the reader, who will trust us, find them for himself. … Mr. Edwin Arnold, who has introduced this little volume to English readers by a highly-appreciative preface, says truly that from these slight sketches a most vivid impression of every-day Indian life may be gathered. … The chief merit of these Indian sketches lies in their truthfulness; their realism is the secret of their vivid poetic life.” — The Examiner.
“One of the most charming little series of sketches we have ever read. If we could imagine a kind of cross between White of Selborne and the American writer Thoreau, we should be able better to define what manner of author Mr. Phil Robinson is. He is clearly a masterly observer of out-door life in India, and not only records faithfully what he sees, but illuminates the record by flashes of gentle culture such as can only come from a well-stored and scholarly mind, and darts, moreover, sunny rays of humor such as can only proceed from a richly endowed and truly sympathetic nature. All living things he loves, and hence he writes about them reverently and lovingly What the accomplished author of the preface calls ‘the light and laughing science’ of this little book will do more to familiarize the English reader with the out-door look of India than anything else, — save, of course, years of residence in the country.” — The Daily Telegraph.
