Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1884-08-07
LITERATURE OF TO-DAY.
Librarian Poole Says 1t Is Superior
to That of the Past.


How does the literature of the pres
ent compare with that of the past, Mr..
Poolep" the librarian of the public Ii
brary was asked.
"By literature you mean fiction, l
suppose was the cautious answer;
sand then I'll say that it is vastly SUI
perior to fiction writings of former
times, and that the moral tone espec-
tally has immeasurably improved"
"How do individual writer's CON-.
pare? For instance, Sterne and George
Eliot?"
'Sterne is unique. He stands out
alone in literature. The same is true
of Fielding. He, also, is inimitable in
the treatment of his plot, in dialogue,
in pathos, and humor. One cannot
compare either with George Eliot, be-
cause she, too, stand alone. She is a
character and philosopher, as well as
a novelist. | will say this that the lit
erature of this century averages much
higher than that of a hundred years
ago. A good deal of the latter is gone
forever, and nobody cares to have it
back"
'.How about scientific writings?"
There are more scientific writers
now than we ever had before, and they
are of higher standing. We had no
men like Darwin, Huxley and Tyndall
in times past. Science itself was in its
infancy then. And as to style, ETC., the
present writer's are much superior. We
have probably hundred leading scien-
titic writers to-day, representing the
best serious thought of the age. A
great deal of the so called scientific
matter that appeared 100 or 200 years
ago had not literary merit enough to
appear in the columns of the daily
Neaos. Lots of abnormal things such
as large pigs, giants, twins, ETC., were
written volumes about that would be
settled by newspaper paragraph, to-
day. And there was still good deal
of necromancy and witchcraft latent in
the brains of the writers of that day."
'.Now do you think, for instance, that
such work as :Hume's Essay on Man
which was m event of at the time,
would cut any figure if it were to ap-
per now for the first timep"
mo, can't agree to that. l think
everything Hume wrote is still worth
reading. In fact, Hume's miscellane-
Gus writings are read to-day as much
as they ever were. And that brings
me to the statement that the writer's of
antiquity are read more to-day than
they ever were. Plato and Homer, for
instance, though we have dozen trans
lations of them are so much in demand
that we are always without them here
in the library. Dante, too, is more
widely read than ever And single
works, such as 'Demosthenes' Grafton
on the Crown were never so much
read as now. Such works are immor-
|tal."
"ADd how do the writers of the
present in point of numbers compare
with their brethren in the past?"
Every much superior of course.
There is no comparison, in fact. And
as for style and artistic development of
plot, etc, there has been great i'm
provement of late. Miss Frances Bur-
ney and Sam Richardson, for instance,
who used to be considered models in the
artistic planning of their stories, are
very crude in their methods as COM
pared with to-day's writer's of fiction"
"How about historical writingsP Has
there not been a great Improvement"
1.-The best contemporaneous writer's
on history are very much ahead of those
of the past. There are some great ex-
ceptions, of course, like Gibbons, whose
historical writings will always be stand
ard works. But in point OF style and
impartiality we are far ahead. The
great curse of English history is its
spirit of partisanship. You find that
in all of them. American history is
very well, too, and is getting to be
written much better now than it used to
be. Bancroft's history consider one
of the poorest ever written. 1t is not
truthful, is very prolix, and written
from partisan standpoint and from
an imperfect knowledge of the facts.
In style it is sophomore. Chicago
Neeos.