Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1883-12-12
ON MODERN FICTION.
SOuida'' Relates q Little Episode
from Real Life.
She Sharply CrIticises the Fictitious
Realism of the spinclcss
Commonplace
letter to London Times

the persons concerned in it, but I will vouch
for the absolute truth of the narrative In
deed, the little drama has been acted within
g stones throw of my gates. A cantatrice of
obscure position had lover in Geuoese
gentleman, who not only had many claims
on her fidelity by reason of his devotion to
her, but also to the education which he had
given her when poor girl, and the hberality
which he had shown to her family; neverthe-
less, she betrayed this generous lover, and
carried on an intrigue with a Young noble of
the neighborhood, youth much younger
than herself and very rich. For some time
the Genoese gentleman, only able to visit heE
at intervals in the Tuscan village where Sd
lived, was without much difficulty deceived,
and, when he did see the young noble, was
assured that he was relation of his be-
trothed At last, however, his suspicious
were fully aroused; instead of going back to
Genoa he one day Unexpectedly returned and
had full proofs of the worthlessness of his
siren.
He pursued his rival to his villa, and fail
ing to provoke him to a duel, sWore that he
would Kill him. The carabineels interven-
ing, he found himself deprived of his just
vengeance and, in the madness of his des-
pair and agony, shot himself by the rivers
side, while his faithless mistress jeered at
him from her open window, in the lovely
stiffness of the moouit September eve. This
was but a few nights ago; he is not dead, but
still lies in great perilin q cottage near where
he fell. The sympathy Of the whole rural
population is with this man, who at least
knew how to love and how to avenge his
honor. The village populace were with
trouble prevented from iynching his worthless
coquerte; and the veteran briaadier of the
guard wept ike child ct the fa-e Of this Wit
TINA d'amore. This is only sone out of a
thousand tragedies which yearly occur in
this, the home of Romeo and Juliet, where
love is not dead letter. Why are not those
who can love and suffer thus as deserving OF
portrayal in fiction as the epicene beings who
know no woes but q passing hysteria Of cop-
science or disillusion before the melting OF q
foggy and impalpable ideal:
Because passion has never touched with its
fire and its glory the prim life of the aesthetic
prig or the rotund Philistine, it is not for
that reason persisted off the face of the earth
It exists in the same force and the same
favor as ii the days of O51ello and Stradeua;
and, I confess, seems to me much mora fifty
subject Of tie novelist or the dranatist
than the fictitious ''realisInn Of the spineless
commonplace. After ALL there is no more
vivid reality than love- The Genoese lover
lying here now, shot through the chest by his
own hand because his generous faith had been
deceived by a heartless mistress, is every
whit as legitimate 2 centre Of interest as An
tho0y Trollope's gossiping bishops OF Henry
James heroines perplexed by plethora OF q
paucity Of proposals.
I remember when George Lawrence was
told that the end Of Sword and Gown" was
improbable. He answered: q Improbable!
Oh, very likely; only you see, it was truen
The eternal sentiment is as real as the in
finite prosaic. l believe 1 am sometimes ac-
cused Of writing fairy Stories" but is not
life itself very often fairy story, if too
often, alas! one in which the evil genius pre-
ponderates, and the wishing cap is foolishly
used by the unwise? To some of us, at least,
dreary and insipid story of an uneventful
and unimpassioned life seems much more
unreal Il. e., unlike our own experiences
than the most romantic narrative conceived
by the widest fancy. To many of us-to
myself, l confess, among the number-the
world seems a marvellous union of tragedy
and comedy, which run side by side like twin
children like "web of Tyrian LOOMS with
the gold threads crossing and recrossing on
lL0 uuoky OIL It's neSn6S.
The amorous, magnificent, heroic life of
Skobelef would, no doubt, seem incredible to
the London itterateur, with his prim dones-
ticities bound up in a duodecimo suburban
villa, papered by Morris, or the rural clergy
man solemnly pacing his treadmill of weekly
monotonies. At this moment. fighting for
the French flag at Tonquin, is young man,
the fame OF whose nom de plume (were | to
that of one of the masters of French fiction;
this gallant sailor is also great musician
and an admirable artist, md he may very
likely die in a barborous country las Henri
Kiviere died. burying with him his genius, his
youth and his marvellous and multitudinous
powers. Well, is not this man every whit as
real" as Mr.. Precisian Dulle, passing his life
between a civil service desk and a house in
South Kensington, or AR. Smalle Joker pen
ming his blameless fiction, which ''never
brings blush on the cheek" etc, with his
six daughters playing lawn tennis in his back
garden, and his physical and mental vision
limited to the chimney pots?
No doubt, all the world over, character
creates circumstance; and the tortoise is rot
10 blame If it cannot leap, only it need not
disbelieve in the greyhound and the horse.
No doubt adventures are to the adventurous
IL the most extended sense of the word; and
romantic and brilliant lives will not fall to
the lot Of the dull and the mediocre But
such lives exist, nevertheless, and it is not
true that a pale uniformity extends ike a
pail over the whole of the human race.
A novel is not necessarily any the more
like real life because it is a story about moth
ing, leading to nowhere, which might mean
der on through half century for any climax
that it ever reaches. cannot SUM-
pose that my own experiences can be wholly
exceptional ones, yet I have known very
handsome people, have known very fine
characters, I have also known some very
wicked ones, and l have also known many
circumstances SO romantic that were they
described in fiction they would be ridiculed
as exaggerated and impossible. In real life
there are condolences so startling, mysteries
so singular, destinies so strange that no wise
novelist could venture to portray them for
fear of making his work appear too bizarre
and too melodramatic. That truth is
stranger than fiction" is round at every turn
in life. The world is not exclusively COM
posed Of the English middle class, varied
with few American young ladies. Would
1t not be well If lecturers or reviewers, before
calling everything which seems strange to
themselves unreal or unnatural, were visited
with a wholesome doubt as to whether it