Chapter 44

by Herman Melville

　　IN WHICH THE LAST THREE WORDS OF THE LAST CHAPTER ARE MADE THE TEXT OFDISCOURSE, WHICH WILL BE SURE OF RECEIVING MORE OR LESS ATTENTION FROMTHOSE READERS WHO DO NOT SKIP IT."Quite an original:" A phrase, we fancy, rather oftener used by theyoung, or the unlearned, or the untraveled, than by the old, or thewell-read, or the man who has made the grand tour. Certainly, the senseof originality exists at its highest in an infant, and probably at itslowest in him who has completed the circle of the sciences.As for original characters in fiction, a grateful reader will, onmeeting with one, keep the anniversary of that day. True, we sometimeshear of an author who, at one creation, produces some two or three scoresuch characters; it may be possible. But they can hardly be original inthe sense that Hamlet is, or Don Quixote, or Milton's Satan. That is tosay, they are not, in a thorough sense, original at all. They are novel,or singular, or striking, or captivating, or all four at once.More likely, they are what are called odd characters; but for that, areno more original, than what is called an odd genius, in his way, is.But, if original, whence came they? Or where did the novelist pick themup?Where does any novelist pick up any character? For the most part, intown, to be sure. Every great town is a kind of man-show, where thenovelist goes for his stock, just as the agriculturist goes to thecattle-show for his. But in the one fair, new species of quadrupeds arehardly more rare, than in the other are new species of characters--thatis, original ones. Their rarity may still the more appear from this,that, while characters, merely singular, imply but singular forms so tospeak, original ones, truly so, imply original instincts.In short, a due conception of what is to be held for this sort ofpersonage in fiction would make him almost as much of a prodigy there,as in real history is a new law-giver, a revolutionizing philosopher, orthe founder of a new religion.In nearly all the original characters, loosely accounted such in worksof invention, there is discernible something prevailingly local, or ofthe age; which circumstance, of itself, would seem to invalidate theclaim, judged by the principles here suggested.Furthermore, if we consider, what is popularly held to entitlecharacters in fiction to being deemed original, is but somethingpersonal--confined to itself. The character sheds not its characteristicon its surroundings, whereas, the original character, essentially such,is like a revolving Drummond light, raying away from itself all roundit--everything is lit by it, everything starts up to it (mark how it iswith Hamlet), so that, in certain minds, there follows upon the adequateconception of such a character, an effect, in its way, akin to thatwhich in Genesis attends upon the beginning of things.For much the same reason that there is but one planet to one orbit, socan there be but one such original character to one work of invention.Two would conflict to chaos. In this view, to say that there are morethan one to a book, is good presumption there is none at all. But fornew, singular, striking, odd, eccentric, and all sorts of entertainingand instructive characters, a good fiction may be full of them. Toproduce such characters, an author, beside other things, must have seenmuch, and seen through much: to produce but one original character, hemust have had much luck.There would seem but one point in common between this sort of phenomenonin fiction and all other sorts: it cannot be born in the author'simagination--it being as true in literature as in zoology, that all lifeis from the egg.In the endeavor to show, if possible, the impropriety of the phrase,Quite an Original, as applied by the barber's friends, we have, atunawares, been led into a dissertation bordering upon the prosy, perhapsupon the smoky. If so, the best use the smoke can be turned to, will be,by retiring under cover of it, in good trim as may be, to the story.