QUARTETS.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18603, 30 January 1926, Page 13

QUARTETS.

SOME LITERARY FOURSOMES. [Bv ''Penguin" in the "Observer"! Much may be made of numbers « thc-v are adroitly manipulated not the authority of for dividing lies » lto ] .. t " LO wit h an ordinary lies, hes 9 U .\ V To me, the adjective, and statistic . re . mvsteries or numbers w ~ ' ,j; 5 . main mvsterious. and I " ns 1 f rom a turbed on receiving a reader to write about uie ;J P the of the number four m R ;,. pn wholly insufficient reason g » that he (or, I suspect, she become acquainted uitn - }J Wallace's story, "The Four Just and had afterwards read •-» }J Conan Doyle's "'The Sign ot Four Mr A. E. W. .Mason's "The ie f thers" ought to have been a as to make a trio of books bj l»i g writers, the titles of which a quartet. But I fail to unders and. anybodv should take a specia 1 in "the number four. It is perhap that two and two make four, tha . _ are four seasons, four cardinal P 01 "; ls . four elements, and four last things. 1 Pythagoreans, as a hasty glaiicc a a book of reference informs me, swore by the number, though they held ten in greater reverence, it being equal 0 on plus two plus three plus four, and all the smaller numbers being contained 111 the last.

Foursomes of various sorts are, of course, to be found in the world 01 letters, and I trust my correspondent will pardon me for acknowledging that, upon receipt of her invitation, _my thoughts turned to the rather lugubrious quartet formed by Job and his three friends. The four, as we are told, sat together upon the ground in silence for seven days and seven nights se%en is a number that was certain to intrude in a discussion of this nature before the lengthy and famous conversation began. I hasten to a far less depressing four. Have you remembered that the Pickwickians made up a quartet? We should each have a vision of our own of the famous four as they mounted the Rochester coach to begin their travels —Mr Pickwick, in tights and gaiters, his eyes beaming behind his spectacles; the susceptible Mr Tupnian—the late Mr Percy Fitzgerald believed that Mr Tupnian's name was suggested by Jane Austen's '' Emma'' while Mrs Elton, describing some of her neighbours, talks of "people of the name of Tupman, with many low connexions, but giving themselves immense airs"; Mr Snodgrass, in his "mysterious blue cloak with a canine skin collar and the sporting Mr Winkle'.

Have you ever thought about the later lives of this four who have added so much to human enjoyment? (This is a digression from my • theme, which will, I hope, be excused.) "Mr Tupman took lodgings at Richmond, where ho has ever since resided. He walks constantly 011 the Terrace during the summer months, with a youthful and jaunty air which has rendered him the admiration of the numerous ■ elderly ladies of single condition who reside in the vicinity. He has never proposed again.''' Mr Snodgrass lives on his farm near Dingley Dell, "cultivating it more for occupation than profit." Mr Pickwick and Mr Winkle are both to be found at Dulwich, their residences being about half a mile apart. Mr Winkle finds it necessary to spend part of every day in tho City, his commercial employment requiring this attention.' Mr Pickwick is a man of more leisure. He sometimes renews his acquaintance with the pictures in the Dulwich Gallery. I wonder whether during any of his visits there he noticed another occasional visitor, a lady whose name is farrjiliar to readers of Mr George Moore's "Evelyn Innes."

Dumas, like Dickens, furnishes us with a quartet in his best-known novel, for, of course, "The Three Musketeers" are really four. Every reader has his, or her, own favourite among them; but when it comes to deciding which of the four we would be most willing to sacrifice, a choice becomes difficult. The chivalrous and austere Athos; the vain, stupid, boa3tful, and loyal Porthos—the description of how he died is one of the best death-scenes in fiction; the gay Aramis, hesitating between a life of amorous adventure and piety and the church; and d'Artagnan, shrewd, calculating, burdened with few scruples, full of wit and good humour, and never hesitating to sacrifice himself to his friends—all four are creations of whom any novelist might be proud. And their four servants, Grimaud, Mousqueton, Bazin, and Planchet, are another quartet, equally well differentiated. Dumas is a writer who, in his own country, has never been rated as highly as he .deserves, and who, like our own Dickens, is often depreciated by those who pride themselves on being ultrafastidious in their taste, Both authors appeal very forcibly to such low-brow readers as myself, both are often spoken of contemptuously by high-brows, and both have won the approval of critics whqm even high-brows cannot despise. Jules Lemaitre said that Dumas possessed '' the , wonderful quality of stringing out the narrative to the crack | Of doom, and at the same time making it appear to move with headlong rapidity," while Stevenson's commenda- j tion of ids manner of conducting a dia- j logue or conversation is equally unquali-1 fied in its admiration—"light as whipped trifle, strong as silk; wordy like a village tale; pat like a general's dispatch; with every fault, yet never tedious; with no merit, yet inimitably ; right." *■ # * I wonder if many boy readers got as much pleasure as I did "from associating with the quartet of girls in Louisa Alcott's. "Little Women." Jo, Meg, Amv, and Beth were to me wholly delightful beings, whose adventures I followed with the 'most intense interest until in. a sequel to the story the little women were transformed into "Good Wives. I have carefully refrained from reading the* book again for the same reason as Wordsworth left Yarrow unvisited. "I have a vision of my own, and why should I undo it?" But if, in these days, boys read girls' books, Miss Alcott's story is certain to be a favourite. Encouraged by her success, Miss Alcott ventured into an alien field, and if "Little Men" finds an admirer in the present generation, it is a proof that we have become decadent. It has, for the purpose of the present discussion, the advantage of providing a united four, but even Dean Farrar's "Eric" is not nearly so bad. * » » Count Anthony Hamilton's "The Pour Faeardins" is another book in which we have a quartet. It an amusing and skilful imitation of "The Arabian Nights," suggested by Galland's translation into French of that work, and though far less famous than Count Hamilton's "Memoirs"of Grammont," is a series of stories that will repay perusal. Other quartets in fiction can be found by those who seek them. Mrs Dashwood and her three daughters, Elinor, Marianne, and Margaret, in Miss Austen's "'Sense and Sensibilitv," are an example of a family of four, but if we try to press too many such examples into our service, we may be tempted like Falstaff, to increase our original 'four rogue**, in buckram" to an incredible number.