he villains are uniformly evil, unrepentant, violent, and in most
cases, romantically strange men. In a good many instances, such as
those of Carver Doone or Parson Chowne, their motives appear to
have sprung, like Iago's, from sheer viciousness. These men are frequently picturesque, of noble but despoiled houses, actuated if not by
the viciousness I have mentioned, by covetousness, by desire for revenge, or by hunger after women. In one or two cases the villain is an
illegitimate son, unrecognized, and desirous to avenge his mother. Occasionally women fill this role; and such women as Lady Bulwrag-Fairthorn boast no less of the general depravity of character than do
their male counterparts. Probably the most consummate villain in
Blackmore's novels is Caryl Came, the sinister French agent of Springhaven.
Born in England of an English father and a French mother, he
is at an early age taken back to France with his mother. The house of
Carne falls into debt and disrepute; and years later, Caryl, now thoroughly Gallicized, returns as the secret envoy of Napoleon, to employ
his crumbling castle as a repository for French arms, and his suave
tongue to the corruption ot the simple folk of Springhaven. It is characteristic of Blackmore's conception that Carne's own viciousness is
his undoing. He is the hero in reverse, the back of the heroic coin, evil
personified. Some of his villainy is well enough motivated by circumstances such as his desire to regain his ancestral lands; but most of it
is to be found in a natural bent for evil and a naturally sinister character. Blackmore's villains are simply the force of evil bodied forth
in pensive melancholies, and handsome but vicious countenances. [55]
References
Burris, Quincy Guy. Richard Doddridge Blackmore: His Life and Novels. Urbana: University of Illinois, 1930.
Last updated 25 April 2006