Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1879-12-12
Historical Fiction.

Historical Fiction.
Nobody, perhaps. disputes that in its
higher or poetical form, historical fiction
includes most of the immortal work of
the human imagination and it might
he thought superfuous to mention the
Had and the Gneid, the Book of Job
and the Niebelungen Lied, and the
principal pieces of all the great drama.
fists. But even prose historical fiction,
at its very best, must outrank the clev-
crest pictures of contemporary man.
ners, for it bespeaks in the writer q
more difficult exercise of less common
order OF faculties. The fame OF Walter
Scott is only now beginning to emerge
from those rising mists that are apt to
cloud q great reputation during the first
generation or two of its posthumous
being but even we. the children and
grandchildren of those who watched
open. mouthed for the Waverleys as
they came, can shrewdly guess that his
work will last in the very form which
he gave it, as will not. for example. that
of the wen-beloved Anthony Trollope,
so like Scott in the easy simplicity of
his methods and prevailing sweetness of
his humor. Thackeray touches his
highest level in "Henry Esmond"; Dick
ems in the serious portions of the " Tale
OF Two Cities ;" Charles Kingsley in
"Hypatia and Amyas Leigh" while
George Eliot's "Romola and Scheffel's
"Ekkehard" over and above their @sthet-
ic value. are monuments of the unflinch.
ing application to this branch of liter.
airy art of the sternest and most labor
exacting principals of modern histori.
cal research. The German for won
der, DISCUSSES his learning more grace
fully than the English writer. It is
rather with Scheffel, in his beautiful
romance, as it ought always to be in
such case, the sunken, yet all the
more impregnable foundation of TO-
mantle supcrstructure !; but either OF
these memorable books is the better
help to the comprehension of bygone
epoch than the blind and pompous his
tories of the eighteenth century quite
as much so as any of the pre-eminently
picturesque histories Of our own time
like Carlyle's and Macaulay's and Pres
colts; little less so than the massive and
legitimately splendid work of any of
the long list of so.called "brilliant I"
contemporary historians, Kinglake, Mot
ley, Taine, Froude, and the rest. No
one of these men would have deigned
to apply for material to anything short
of those" original documents of which
we hear SO much but the moment they
pass beyond mere transcription and COM
pilation, the moment they begin to Sc
lect and fuse and recast, the element of
the historians personality enters in, and
his work becomes, in degree, out of
the imagination. No two men can ever
read the same record any more than two
can see the same picture.-Atlantic.
ADVICE TO YOUNG LADIEs.-Ladies-
Gagged birds of beautiful plumage, but
sickly looks-pale pets of the parlor,
who vegetate IN unhealthy atmosphere,
like the potato terminating in dark
cellar, why do you not go into the
open air and warm sunshine, and add
luster to your eyes, bloom to your
cheeks, elasticity to your steps, and
vigor to your frames? Take exercise;
run up the hill on a wager, and down
again for fun; roam the fields, climb
the fences, leap the bitches, wade the
| oAoOnos oheA, "AeOA N"y "a -OAuAoiotA6
exercise and unrestrained liberty, 60
home with an appetite acquired by
healthy enjoyment. The beautiful and
blooming young lady-rosy-cheeked
and bright-eyed-who can darn stock.
ing, mend her own frock, command q
regiment of pots and kettles, and be a
lady when required, is girl that young
men are in quest of for wife. But
your piDing. screwed up, wasp wasted,
doll. dressed, consumptive-mortgaged,
music numbering, novel devouring
daughters of fashion and idleness, are
no more fit for matrimony than pullet
is to look after brood of fourteen chick
ems. The truth is. dear girls, you want
less fashionable restraint and more lib
erty of action; more kitchen and less
parlor; more leg exercise and less sofa;
more frankness and less mock modesty.
Loosen your waist-strings, and breathe
pure atmosphere, and become some
thing as good and beautiful as nature
designed.
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