Morning journal and courier., 1893-07-19
Great Charncters of PictIop,

As matter of fact, the great charsc- ters of fiction" are almost all deeply grooved with characteristics that no one would think ideal. Who would not rash- CT recall to his mind Dickens Peggotty, or Barkis, or ''the lone, lorn woman," or Dora, or even Uriah Heap, CT MT. Dick, than the fade, sentimental Agnes Wick feldf Who would not prefer Mr. Toots to Paul Dombey, or Mrs. Rodgers to Ruth Pinch! Who can help thinking 8 great deal more of Becky Sharp than of Amelia or Colonel Dobbinl With both Dickens and Thackeray thers was always apt to be something mawkish about their Ideal char acters, though Colonel Newcone is great exception. Even in Sir Walter Scotts case, We think that Jeanie Deans ia almost the only reslly great ideal character, snd there he was much helped by having placed her in class beneath his own, as the little blurders and ignorancss of which he could permit his readers to smile gent ly, while he painted the great fortitude and force of the woman in strong, broad lines. He had no occasion to iGealizs her mere manners.
 If you think of the ''grest characters" In Scott, those characters you enjoy most to recall to mind, the characters you would best like, were it possible, to have actually seen In the circumstances and scenes in which Scott delinestes them. Is there one of them except Jesnie Deans that you could call an ideali Balfour Of Burley Is ten times ss interesting ss Morton. CIaser- house far more living than Lord EEsndale, and perhaps Cuddie and Msuse Hesdrigg are more vividly painted than any of them. But of the characters to which we most gladly recur in memory, of the char acters which We should have bsen most de- lighted to see acting as Sir Walter repre- sents them, Is there one that We should call really great In the moral as well as the literary sense, with the single exception we have Damedl MoRkbsrns, Edie Oehil tree, Rob Roy. Baillie Nicol Jarvie, Dan die Dinmont. Julia Msnnering, Meg Mer- rifles, none of these are ideal characters, nor Is even DI Vernon quite living enough for heroine of the most real kind. And if we go to the romsrces, do We not think moTe of such portraits ss those of James l., or Louis NI, or Mary Stuart, or Mur- ray, or Charles of Burgundy, or Elizabeth and her chief noblsman, than We do of any of the imagiuery heroes and hsroines like Nigel or Quentin Durward, or Roland GEseme, or the Black Douglas, CT Tressil- ian, or even Amy Robsarti
 It Is the great pictures of passionate men and women, or cowsrdly kings, or crime-stsined queens, or merciless regents, or shreTd ahbots, or smuggling shippers, or daft litigants, or csnuy innkeepers which riTst and fascinste our imagination, not the walking gentlemen, and chivalric knights, and oppressed maidens who arc put in Rs 6 proper tribute to the expecta- tious of the sentimental reader. Even of the few ideals who are also real, like Colo mel Newcome, none except Jsarie Deans are strong characters. Colonel Newcome Is not strong, none even of George Eliot's ideal men or women are strong, and, as a rule, we may say that, outside The Heart of Midlothian and Shakespeare, there is hardly & single really strong ideal heroine who Is also real. And, even including Shakespeare, there is hardly A single real ly strong ideal hero who is also real Shakespeare is not within the range 3D. parently, of the writers who paint "the great characters of fiction" They inter pret fiction as including the novel only, | and not the drama. Ne: consider how few | there are of ShsktEpegre's greater male characters that are 6. once ideal and strong. A few of his women are nearly perfect. and are not only nearly perfect, but strong of purpose, like Issballs in ''Msssure for Measure" But which of his male characters would one have cared 10 | servei Hamlet perhaps, as Horstio did. | Yet Hamlet-though, without ever having | lived except in literature, be has widensd for us the range of human nSturs, and l supplied ne with ss complex & problem as if he had really nred-was certainly not | only vscillxt!Dg aud infirm of purpose, but interruptions as well; witness his con- triviDg that R9sencrantz and GuilGenetern should bs put to death In England, though he had TO evidence st all that they had 1 corspired with the king against his life. l Of all ShakespeArs'd other greater chArRr- ters, Is there one that we should most wish to have known, 10 whom We could have been thoroughly loyAll Certainly not 10 the most interesting of them. Certainly not to Shylock, or Macbeth, or any of his English kings, or Wolsey, or CoriolAnus, | or Julius Caesar, or Mark Antony. Even O:hello, with all his nobility, is far too ieslous and vindic.ive 10 inspire moral de votion.
 As rule, the greater masculine charso- ters In fiction, like the great characters in bietory, srs deeply scored with lines of tempsstuous forcs and noble or ignoble passion. And literature, though ia the hsnds of the highest genius 1t has occa sioually managed to paint an ideal heroine who impresses us as thoroughly real, hs, hardly ever managed to paint an ideal berC who Is both thoroughly resl and thorough ly masculine. Of sll the greater charac tsrs, it may be said:
 Down the pale cheek long lines Of shadow slo pc Which years, and curious thought and sufTerini | give.
 But the long lines of shadow are line
 which score not only suffering, but sin And wherever that is absent We almost al
 ways find in their plRce some signal wan
 of power, some signal deficiency in sagaci
 ty, resolutensss and distiuctress of pur
 pose The few exceptions may almost b. counted on the fingers of one hand. The
 "great" characters in fiction are generally the most pathetIcally helpless, or else the
 most passionate and impsrious of human
 characters.
 | Rnarnnss NhInnfna-R Post.