Faint traces of the
practice survive in T.W. Robertson, as in his master, Thackeray. But it
was in his earliest play of any note that he called a journalist Stylus.
In his later comedies the names are admirably chosen: they are
characteristic without eccentricity or punning. One feels that Eccles in
_Caste_ could not possibly have borne any other name. How much less
living would he be had he been called Mr. Soaker or Mr. Tosspot!
Characteristic without eccentricity--that is what a name ought to be. As
the characteristic quality depends upon a hundred indefinable,
subconscious associations, it is clearly impossible to suggest any
principle of choice. The only general rule that can be laid down is that
the key of the nomenclature, so to speak, may rightly vary with the key
of the play--that farcical names are, within limits, admissible in
farce, eccentric names in eccentric comedy, while soberly appropriate
names are alone in place in serious plays. Some dramatists are
habitually happy in their nomenclature, others much less so.
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