Morning journal and courier., 1883-02-02
The Author.
The Peculiar Power Yielded Over His Interested Readers.

The Peculiar Power Yielded Over His
 Interested Readers.
 EoIiver Wendell Holmes in January Atlantic'l
 An author may interest his public by his work or by his personality, or by both. oreat mathematician or metaphyslclan may De lost sight of in his own intellectual wealth. as a great capitalist becomes at last the mere annendage of his far more important millions There is' on the other hand, class of writ ers whose individuality is the one thing we care about. The world could get along with out their help, but it wants their company We are not so very curious about the detalis of the life of Gauss but we do want to know . oood deal about Richter. Sir William Rowan Hamilton invented, or developed, the doctrine of duaternions but we do not care very narticularly about his domestic annals, the niigrations from the blue bed to the brown. and the rest. But poor, dear Charles T,amb-we can hardly withhold the pltylng epithet, since the rough Sootchman brought mn aoainst him, as one of his own kale-pots miobt have shivered quaint and precious arnphora-poor dear Charles-he did not in went any grand formula, he certainly had not the lever of Archimedes, but he had personality which was quite apart from that of all average humanity, and he IS aaop'ea as one of pleasantest inmates of memory. It Is l enouoh to say of many men that they are l interesting And we are content to say or l many others that they are useful, vlrtuous' praiseworthy, illustrious even. by what they \ have achieved but uninteresting, and we do not greatly care to hear anything aoou' thetn | apart from their work.
 ! fNoho5v ia interesting to all the world. An f author who is spoken of as universally ad- | mired will find, if he is foolish enough to inouire that there are not wanting 1ntein8ent | persons who are indiferant to hlm, nor yet | those who have 8 special and empnatlc ols- l like to him. If there were another Homer, | ha HnmarOma6tlX. An l author should know that the very character 1 istics which make him the object or admlra- tion to many, and endear him to some among them. will render him an object Of dislike to I A certain number of individuals or equai, II may be of superior, intelligence Douotiess God never made 8 better berry than the Strawberry, yet it is a poison to consider. able number of persons There are those 1 zbo dislike the fragrance of the water lily, and those in whom the smell of rose pro duces series of those convulsions known af sneezes. He Cor she) who ventures lnt9
 authorship must expect to enootn '4inetby ! sional instances of just such antlpatny, | which he and all that he does are the sFan l ieets Let him take it patiently Wnaf l thus ont of accord with the temperamenH o the mood of his critic may not be plamhole
 nav. it may be excellent. But Aollus( doe not like it or the wrlter-the reason Tny ,.il T cannot tell, perhaps, but he does nfot hk l either. and he is in his rights. and Ithe at
 Thor must sit still and let the critic play o
 his idiosyncrasies against his own.
 There is a converse to all this, which 1t much pleasanter to contemplate And to ez nerience. Let us suppose an auEhor to hay some distinguishing personal Quality, whlc
 shows itself in what he writes, ,tand by whlcl he is known from all other Writers Ther will be eindividuals-they may be few, the | l may be many-who will so instantly recol nizs. 80 eagerly accept, (so warmly adop ] even SO devoutly idolize5 the writer in que lion that self love itself1 dulled as it's pala' 2 ia by the hot spices of praise, draws bac : l overcome by the burhing stimulants of ador' ? lion. I was told pot long since by one of or 2 most justly admired au!horesses that corr |. spondent wrote to her that she had read or of her stories fourteen times in succession. There is meaning, and deep one,
 these elective afinities. Most things whle
 we call odd are even in the economy of n
 tnre Each personality is more or less con
 pIetely the complement of some other; some one, perhaps, exactly; of others near
 enough fo have 8 special significance Il
 them A reader is frequently ignorant l. what he wants until he happens to fan
 with the writer who has the complementa
 element of which he is in need Then II finds the nourishment he wanted 1n the le tellectual or spiritual food before hlm or l, d his failing appetite revived by the stimuli
 of, mind more highly vltahzed than a. l own.