THE READING OF FICTION CHARACTERS.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 858, 2 July 1910, Page 9

THE READING OF FICTION CHARACTERS.

Once upon a time Tlieophile Gautier allowed to slip into liis pictorial phrases something that remotely resembles an abstract idea—tho idea, namely, that in any.house the'funiiture comes to stand to its owner in a relation which may bo described as physiognomic. In other words, the pieces of furniture and their arrangement in a room are such that one entering it can perceive something in them, characteristic of their owner, so that they will tell him, at any rate, say, whether lie is a lawyer, 'a doctor, or a clergyman. When stated thus-in a general way ono cares neither to. deny the-principle nor to affirm it, but .evidently. there is one room of the house where it manifestly obtains—it is that room in which, call, it study, library, or merely smoking-room, ■ the books ari» the 'furniture. If only tho habitual inmate has made his own collection .it follows that 'each book subtends some, facet of his character,- and that,; accordingly, the contents of the shelves , are an aid to one who, wishes to read tho. mind's construction of the proprietor. ■ Now 110 ■■ writer more frequently exhibits that side of his puppets' characters which is indicated by their relation-. to hooks than Mr. WelLs, and it may-be interesting to take,certain examples /from . his best-known -, work, "Kipps," Riul his most, recent 0110 "Mr. Polly." ■. Kipps himself is a fine instance,, and the irony of Mr. Wells in ascribing /to him the views concerning books'.which he does comes out in the fact that', as will be remembered, Kipps ends by becoming a bookseller.'To him a book has no- more individuality, than a brick. . "I noticed," lie says, "when we Used ,to go to that lib'ry . at, Folkestone, ladies were not anything like what they was in the draper's;'if you 'aven't got just what they Want it's. 'Oh, 110,' and out they go. But in a book-shop it's- different. One book's very.like another.: After all, what is it? Something to read , and done with." Kipps's friend Coote is another instance. Coote "has a great idea of the utility of books, but having 110 bent of his:own to follow collects books which seem to have been authoritatively recommended. Thus his -library •is made up. of obsolete classics, temporary successes, the. Hundred' Best . Books, tho Encyclopaedia Britannica, Smiles, and much indescribable rubbish—"iii, fact," 'comments Mr. Wells, "a compendium ■of the contemporary' British' mind." Those two types, are at bottom alike in having no genuine literary appreciation. In "Mr. Polly," on,the other hand, the' two': types . 'lire, contrasted. Rusper the - Ironmonger-is one. He reads the ; "Reyiew ; ;;bf .'Reviews", arid "had helonged>to a literary society somew ; here"ohcd," and had a vague idea that there .were;.deep things', in books. "He thought books were written to,; enshrine Great Thoughts,- arid that art was -pedagogy- in fancy dress ■He is .a contrast to Mr. .Polly, in'that "he had no sense of phrase or epithet or richness 'of . texture," for those were Mr. Polly'"s delight. ;• Polly, indeed, had a pretty good literary taste. It had its limits, 110. doubt, for he took kindly neither, to Scott nor to Dickens,, but ho was sensitive to. effects of style, for . "Conrad's prose had a pleasure for him' that' he ; ..-was never able to define, a. peculiar deep-coloured effects" . There is, .indeed, one point in tho three or more pages in which Mr. Wells inventories Mr. Polly's literary preferences at which one pauses. It iswhero Wo are told that-he took so heartily to Waterton's 'Wanderings . in South -America" ."that. he not only read and read it, but that "he would even amuse himself, by - inventing descriptions of other birds in Watertonian manner, new, birds that 110 invented,. birds with peculiarities that made -him chuckle when they occurred to-him." . This is Very .probable, for it is a -of' Stopford Brooke's, that one of the element-) in a■ perception of literory beauty is a desire to produce it oneself—-a remark which links together aesthetic appreciation and aesthetic creation. -Nevertheless,, one asks tho question, if tilings went, thus far with Mr. Polly—Did Mr. Wells at this point of his story intend that he should create nothing : better than absurd epithets and have 110 fairer destiny in front of liim than the. post of handy man at the Potwell Inn? If so, and if the - character .of. Mr. Polly -is to be be taken as consistent, then one must conc'ude that a very genuine and 011 the whole sound literary taste may exist in a character of 110 strength fill the practical, moral, or intellectual side.—"Manchester Guardian."