Model For Literature
It is widely believed that Herbert is the inspiration for the character Sandy Arbuthnot, a hero in several John Buchan novels. The series starts with The Thirty-Nine Steps, but Arbuthnot's first appearance is in Greenmantle, hence the title of his granddaughter's biography of him, The Man Who Was Greenmantle. Herbert's Italian family villa is the model for that in the Sword of Honour trilogy by his son-in-law Evelyn Waugh.
The cameo character of the 'Honourable Herbert' in Louis de Bernières's novel Birds Without Wings is clearly based on Herbert. He appears as a British liaison officer with the ANZAC troops serving in the Gallipoli campaign. A polyglot officer able to communicate with both sides, he arranges the burial of the dead of both sides, achieving great popularity with both sides - a description that mirrors his role in the 1915 truce.
Read more about this topic: Aubrey Herbert
Famous quotes containing the words model and/or literature:
“Your home is regarded as a model home, your life as a model life. But all this splendor, and you along with it ... it’s just as though it were built upon a shifting quagmire. A moment may come, a word can be spoken, and both you and all this splendor will collapse.”
—Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906)
“In literature the ambition of the novice is to acquire the literary language: the struggle of the adept is to get rid of it.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)