PET IDEAS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1932, 30 November 1888, Page 32

PET IDEAS.

Poe truly observes that every man has a pet word or phrase which he uses very frequently. Thus, Poe himself was fond of the adverbs "very" and "indeed"; the favourites of Mrs Browning were " down " and "leaning," which occur in her poems over and over again ; and Herbert Spencer makes great use of " manifest " and " manifestly." A word, as Canon Farrar has shown, can never adequately express a thought, but it Can reveal to us a great deal respecting character and disposition. Bearing this fact in mind, then, a little reflection will enableanybody to become a tolerably good judge of character. A person who is anxious to agree with you will keep reiterating such phrases as "Just so," "O£ course," "Exactly so," and many others of like import ; while a person of an opposite frame of mind will (if he speak at all) ejaculate " Hum ! " or "Ah I " or favour you with some such remarks as " Well, it may be," or "You may be right," or even exclaim, " Nonsense." In the latter case there can of course be no doubt as to his meaning. Applying this rule to all classes of people, one can very soon get a fair idea of their mental attitude. Nor does this remark apply only to words and phrases. Every man has also his pet joke ? his pet amusement, and his pet idea upon some general subject; and Whatever his choice may be on such matters, it is usually comparatively easy to judge from that joke, amusement, or idea, his views on very impoitant matters, and to gain a tolerably good notion of his mind. When Dickens was in America some friend, who he thought was in India, suddenly clapped him on the back. "Great heavens," exclaimed the novelist ; " what a little world this is to be sure j" It was a favourite idea of his that this world is not nearly so large as is generally supposed— that people wto we think are milts away are often very near us, and that all of us are connected by some mysterious means. Who will say that a man who oo often insisted upon the narrowness of life's grooves oould be anything else but a keen observer of- the peculiarities of human nature§and a student of. all the little oddities of life ? Again, Scott's pet saw that the wisest of our race often reserve the average stock of folly, to be all expended upon some one flagrant absurdity, could only have come from a close observer of human nature. Other examples might be quoted, but these two instances will suffice to show that a man's pet joke or saying affords a pretty clear index of his mind, just as the word a poet uses most frequently will, as Poe observes, give a clue to his central idea.

It is somewhat strange that very few men are afl'are of their pet word, phrase, or idea, no matter how often they use it, or how glaringly apparent it may be. Hans Christian Andersen, however, was quite aware of his characteristic. In the introduction to the " Goloshes of Fortune" (Charles Bover's translation) he says: "Every author has some peculiarity in his descriptions or in his style Of writing:. Those who do not like him magnify it, shrug their shoulders, and exclaim : ' There he is again ! ' " This is very true. He proceeds to say that he is quite aware of his peculiarity (which consists in mentioning the principal thoroughfare of a city in this style: London has its Fleet street, Liverpool its Lime street, Manchester its Market street, &c), but that nevertheless he intends to commence in hisfavouritestyle once more.

It is very rare, however, for an author to know his pet idea— unless his attention has been particularly called to it and hence it is that one sees the same phrase in an author's works over and over again, An orator has still less chance of having his attention drawn to a pet phrase, no matter how remarkable it may be, because comparatively little oratory finds its way into print. An American President was in the habit of using this 1 curious phrase in every one of his prayers : "We are the degenerate plants of a Btrange vine." A keen observer happened to nofice this fact, and drew the President's attention to it, whereupon that gentleman was considerably astonished at his frequent use of the phrase. ' ' ' If a man knew what his pet idea is, it would be" difficult to account for the fact fcbat one central idea afways runs throughout a novelist's works, since if; is hardly reasonable to suppose that any writer of fiction would deliberately repeat himself in a rather essential detail of his plot. But on the hypothesis that few men know their pet idea, such aproceeding is at once understood, and one jean at once understand how it is that the same idea occurs in each work of a novelist. For example, in Theodore Hooks ■poyels — once very popular, but now seldom fead-r-almost every jtnportant event occurs fet dinner qr supper ; and in. all^ Dickens works, that hav^any plpt worth speaking of, fchecHmax is brought put by a listener. . , Let any reader think over the finish of any pf Dickens' immortal works,' and he will at

once see that the catastrophe in every instance is brought about by an eavesdropper. With other novelists the case is precisely the same; a certain pet idea runs throughout all their works, and even those of the most voluminous are scarcely excepted from this rule.

" Habits," says Locke, " especially such as are begun very early, come at last to produce actions in us which often escape our observation ; " and it would seem that certain youthful impressions become so familiar to the mind that a man may give words to the ideas produced by these impressions without the same consciousness that would accompany other ideas. It would be difficult to come to any conclusion with regard to some of these pet ideas, but others clearly point to a certain frame of mind ; and in the case of pet words or phrases, there is rarely any difficulty in getting a clue to the thoughts or the character of those in whom they can be recognised.