New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1856-07-10
~ : IN OF
Be MI Il NJ CE5

il thing--tllis enc Of romance; strange
al NJ onetons and its effects Reaching
Though the veil Of the present it glasps and
III Tile occurrences of the future, penetrating
behind tile curtain ofthe past makes history before
unwritten Out Of nothing itcreates life, with all the
ncidants and occurrences natural thereto--harmon-
izing with the most actual facts and the strongest
PROBABILITIES prepares, first, the scene to be used,
Nv fiat partaking the imperativeness which called
this world into being then, it with yerdule,
divides it by oceans and waters it with many mighty
Mississipps brooks and rivulets civizes 1t,
peoples it. The passions, emotions, wishes, feelings
and natures Of men are clothed upon and made to
move corporeally before the reader, as the Witch OF
Endor made the form of the dead King OF Israel re-
new its life before the eyes of the startled smmoner
1t creates angels and calls up devils 1t rules the sea-
sons and issues commands to the Fates themselves.
The time when romance had its origin, not even
Dunlap in his great history of fiction has presumed
to determine; for before Eve had attained an age when
most children are weaned, she had listened to and
been beguiled by romance, the very serious effects
of which her grandchildren feeling to this day.
It had its way with the seed Of Abraham, and its re-
cord in the only book Of that time, which passed
through that greater than Deucaeons deluge. 1t en-
shared the history of eras before Herodotus and Lvy,
as it has of many since, and nteingled the false
and fabulous with the true and actual that no
Niebuhr nor even Ledyard, working with an inge-
nuity seemingly supernatural, and unraveing great
balls of fact from webs of fiction, able to deci-
pher decisvey the real occurrences CLOSED by it, 1t
put that strange light over the middle ages which
subsequent ages have not been able to dspe and
in this practical day, has found its strength conmen-
surate to the occasion and beautifully begues the
beings of the present as those who sat together when
the morning stars sang their first anthem.
There is cause for this as there is for all things,
and that cause is the desire that all people, in all
times and under all circumstances, have had of NOV
ing out of themseves-of going from the hardness
and crudty Of the real into the paradise of the I'M
real, and trying to find compensation in the latter
for the suferings in the former. The mind, too, is
capable of conceivng infinitely more than the slug
gsh physical sense can enjoy, and strives always to
equalze the qualification. 1t sympathises, however,
with its friend and companion and endeavors to pic
ture eDjoyments that may be shared in their super
tive by both. So outsrpping the possible it runs to
the impossible, and conceiyes and executes in the
clouds what is hostile and foreign to the earth There
FORE this life out Of fe pictures in its true state not
what is nor what may be, nor not, perhaps, often
that which should be-if we go by the old rule, the
what isis best. It pictures, however, that which,
would bea seemngimprovement-e extracts the thorns
rolls away the rocks fills up the chasms or so con
yerts them from what they actually are as to render
them partially blissful and roseae. The trials have
their immediate following rewards-the crimes theil
proper Nemesis at their heels. In fact, romance il
the only possible Arcadia earth, of which Sydney
drealned--the only Utopia of which Moore wrote
Just so long as men can by its instrumentaity lift
themselves into forgetfuness Of the carking cares
that surround them, and raise their heads into the
clear ether lying above the Clouds just so long it will
be popular In the hands of journeymen and appren
tees, the work may be bunglingly done-botched-
ruined The true master, however, turns it out rount
and harmonious we'll fitting in every part, pleasure
| both to the author and reader.
We are aware of the objections that fiction has me
with from the Shylocks, Gradgrinds and Persons c
the world but in them all, find sufficient reason
for condemning that which the reason Of Scott, 0
1 Goethe and mutitudes of other lustrious men ha
i approved. Those who wish to feed always upon fin
and sand stone-can they not, in the name of all TIL
Gods, find a diet sufficient for their digestion? lie
those, gtherefore, who would have valleys alternate
with mountainous, and rivulets run by the side Q
4. rivers, enjoy their lesser pleasures.