In thinking about the communicator’s role as a ‘pointer’, the “shining web of history”[1] represented for F W Boreham a source by which people might be enriched from its “priceless hoard.”[2] The historic ‘vaults’ to which he directed his readers included books, shrines, monuments and anniversaries.Boreham also pointed people towards books because he recognized literature to be “a mirror to the face of life.”[3] When reading, Boreham said, a character in a book “delights us and rebukes us”, thus saving the author from needless moralizing or sermonizing.[4]
Geoff Pound
Image: Boreham recognized literature to be “a mirror to the face of life.” Bernado Strozzi’s painting, ‘Old woman at the mirror’.
[1] F W Boreham, Mercury, 23 November 1946.
[2] Boreham, Mercury, 20 November 1926.
[3] Boreham, Mercury, 14 August 1948.
[4] Boreham, Mercury, 23 July 1949.
