The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1895-03-07

fishers and not be struck by the num-
berless works which may be classed un-
der the general title of Personal Remin-
iscences, These are the works most pro-
fusely advertised, the most largely sol d,
the most eagerly asked for at the libra
ries, the most ravenously devoured by
intelligent people. and the most talked
about.
OF course, this form of literature may
range from all but the very highest to
all but the very lowest. In spite Of
MAcAULAY's mocking structures on the
author of the "Life Of Johnson" Bos-
WELLS book is work of art, conscious
or unconscious, of no mean order, and is
polite literature in every sense of the
word, though it is mostly what the au-
thor remembers about his hero. A man
who, in these days, writes his
"reminiscences, may be scholar, or he
may be very much the reverse; but
should he have come across in his life
time a sufficient number of interesting
people, and has collected the requisite
number of entertaining facts and stories
about them, he will not want for readers.
The explanation of this curiosity about
people whom we have never seen, perhaps
never heard of, except in lazy sort of
way, must be that ordinary human
beings are interested in ordinary human
beings, and that it Is not necessary for
individuals to be really distinguished or
able or fascinating for US to care to hear
about them. 1t Is enough that they are,
or once were. individuals; that they
lived on the, earth we inhabit,
and followed much the same course
Of life we pursue. 1t is sympathy
at the bottom that makes JONES read
with pleasure of SMITH he never saw,
and makes SMITH prick up his ears
when an anecdote is told at the club
concerning ROBINSON he never heard Of
before. Thus, in all probability, the
attractiveness people find In reminis-
cences is, In some degree, the same as
that they discover in novels, with
this difference: that they can feel
sure that the men and women who
figure in "reminiscences really did live
and were verify our own flesh and blood
and not mere fantastic or arbitrary
creations of the novelist's inventive
faculties. Then, too, il we were obliged
to confine our interest to records Of men
and women who were great, beautiful,
or famous the list would be soon ex-
hausted and we should be left high
and dry on the shore Of barren and un-
sympathetic Indifference. Happily it is
not successful people alone that are in
teresting: nor do people require to have
genius in order to excite our curiosity.
Inded, it might be plausibly argued
that the most interesting people Of all
are not the exceptionally gifted
but the common run of mankind.
There are women who affirm that no
man is interesting who possesses strong
character, and all really great men do
possess strong characters. There Is a
good deal of amusement to be got out of
the characters that are not strong, and
possibly the largest amount out Of those
that are thoroughly weak. Perhaps it
would be more accurate to say that the
composite characters, the characters that
now are strong, now are weak, now i'm
pulsive, now self-controlled, are those
that afford the best material for the
man who wants to draw on his recollec-
tion. The time for painting faultless
heroes and perfect heroines no longer
exists the present generation cares for
real flesh and blood like ourselves.
"reminiscences. therefore. may be full
not only of interest, but OF meaning;
and the world is indebted to those
amongst us who, advanced in years,
ransack their desks and CLEAN their
mem ories for recollectiors of the less
important specimens of average humani-
ty they have met in the course of
long and sociable life. As rule, too,
the capacity to unite reminis-
cences that constitute agreeable reading
augurs in the writer the possession of
kindly, sympathetic and genial temper
ament. Men do not go on mixing fire.
quently with their kind unless they feel
amiably disposed toward each other.
They must have made themselves agree
able and welcome in many and various
circles in order to have had the oppor-
tunities of amassing the fund of anec-
dotes which, in the fulness Of years,
they communicate to the world. Nor
could they have attained to the results
they achieve had they deliberately set
to work early in life to accumulate
materials out of which, in due course,
to write "reminiscences. just as Lord
BEAcoNsFIELD shrewdly and correctly
asserted that the man who is
always asking questions Is never
told anything, 50, as a rule, the man
n