Runcorn Examiner. — 1893-12-30 (Runcorn, Cheshire, England)

LUMBAGO.  A TALK WINK MR. JEROME.  After a while I turned the conversation upon his own work in particular, asking him how it was he was able, out of his own inner consciousness as it were, to evolve so many curious specimens of humanity,and yet so true to life. " Well," he thoughtfully replied, "it is rather difficult to say off-hand, because though lam always •studying life in the rough, yet I rareiy pick out solitary specimens of humans. Things sink in unconsciously, I suppose. I couldn't tell you what a man had on five minutes after he had left me, but after a while, if I thought about him, he would all come back to Use. As to what they say and think—the characters in my books —I always feel as if I knew what a man would say ; if I see his face luau always tell what h. is going to say,for words, modes of expression, are so much the part of a man. Take, for instance, that double character in my Novel •Notes,' where a man is a gentleman for one month and an East end blackguard the next month. Whenever I conjured up the two faces of that one man I knew exactly what each would say. Lavater says that you can alter yo ut feelings by your facial muscles. • Stick out the jaw,' he says, and you feel determined at once.' I often do that myself. The muscles have a distinct effect on the will power. It simply means that body and mind re-act on one another. Wag a dog's* tail to make him good humoured. If you can make a man laugh against his will, his bad humour goes, Oi,persed by the muscles of laughter. You notice this often in the House of Commons. I always enter into my characters' thoughts and feelings I can't help myself! Mr. Solomon in painting my portrait the ether day notict d that. I happened to think of a murder in my story ; the savageness of it came into my face, and he had to paint the expression over again when my thoughts were of a more cheerful nature. I den't work from my head, but from my heart. For the time being lam the man lam describing. I could not possibly describe him cud his doings in cold blood. Take Uncle Podger ' hanging thu pictures in "Three Men in a Boat.' I actually was that man putting up the pictures, or rather, I was the people standing round him. He was only refixctive. I did not take him from his point of view. I was his disgusted wife looking on. I dare say he thought the onlookers a pack of, fools. My characters really live while lam writing about them. ..l'are they are like people gone abroad—they have dropped out of my life. _ . . .  i; not. till I have got to-thirds through my book that know my new characters, Many authors go back to . . . .  their old characters. Bret Harte must have 1-oved to gn back to Bill." "And what class of people do you like best to describe?' "There again it is difficult to say definitely," replied my host, as he lit one of his neverfailing cigarettes. "There is,a keen study underneath tbe surface to be found in the quieter and better educated class rs ; bizarre effects in the eccentric strong characters; but it is the totally uncultivated who provide the strongest. My great point, I think, is in making people talk ; but I don't think you can train yourself to it. If yea have a strong sympathy,generally you can at once get iaside a man. 'You think with him and express yourself with him. Each class has certain subtleties. The costermonger, the politician, the society *inner imagine them gaaertid round one subject, and  how differently each of them would view the same thing, each one from his own point of thought. There would he little turns of wording and ezpression—the reflex of the map's thought, and this, without taking into account accent or grammatical accuracy—merely the bent ot the mind."—" Cassell's Family Magazine."