ious old family, Mr. Arnold would never have dragged in the
Ilyssus. The name would have had for him a savour of quaint
distinction. The suggestion of a rag would never have struck him. For
it is a fact that whatever thing may be connoted or suggested by a name
is utterly overshadowed by the name's bearer (unless, as in the case of
poor 'Ragg,' there is seen to be some connexion between the bearer and
the thing implied by the name). Roughly, it may be said that all names
connote their bearers, and them only.

To have a 'beautiful' name is no advantage. To have an 'ugly' name is
no drawback. I am aware that this is a heresy. In a famous passage,
Bulwer Lytton propounded through one of his characters a theory that
'it is not only the effect that the sound of a name has on others which
is to be thoughtfully considered; the effect that his name produces on
the man himself is perhaps still more important. Some names stimulate
and encourage the owner, others deject and paralyse him.'

Bulwer himself, I doubt not, believed that there was something in this
theory. It is natural that a novelist should. He is always at great
pains to select for his every puppet a name that suggests to himself
the character which he has ordained for that puppet. In real life a
baby gets its surname by blind heredity, its other names by the blind
whim of its parents, who know not at all what sort of a person it will
eventually become. And yet, when these babies grow up, their names seem
every whit as appropriate as do the names of the romantic puppets.
'Obviously,' thinks the novelist, 'these human beings must "grow to"
their names; or else, we must be viewing them in the light of their
names.' And the quiet ordinary people, who do not write novels, incline
to his conjectures. How else can they explain the fact that every name
seems to fit its bearer so exactly, to sum him or her up in a flash?
The true explanation, missed by them, is that a name derives its whole
quality from its bearer, even as does a word from its meaning. The late
Sir Redvers Buller, tauredon hupoblepsas [spelled in Greek, from
Plato's Phaedo 117b], was thought to be peculiarly well fitted with his
name. Yet had it belonged not to him, but to (say) some gentle and
thoughtful ecclesiastic, it would have seemed quite as inevitable.
'Gore' is quite as taurine as 'Buller,' and yet does it not seem to us
the right name for the author of Lux Mundi? In connection with him, who
is str