Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1884-06-06
THE TASTE FOR ROMANCE.
Old People Who Are Anxious t.
Know How the Story "Win Come

fGertrude Garrison

Gertrude GarrsOn.1
/ asked Mr.. Bonner if he had ne~er
found it necessary to make any new
departures in consequence of the
changes in literary taste; if the same
order OF stories that pleased when peo-
pie had real less and had less to read
pleased now? He said he had in no
way altered his original ideas on the
subject of editing. He believed human
nature to he always the same in any
age yesterday, to-day and forever.
The Ledgers enormous constituency
Is an index of taste common to all
mankind-the taste for romance. All
the world likes to real stories. The
prosier and more uneventfnl the lives
OF the readers, the greater their de-
light in the exciting fortunes of the
heroes and heroines of the novel. Ro-
nance rests them. 1t lifts them out
oi the dullness of everyday life, opens
wide the gate which leads in the
fair field of fancy and bids them walk
therein and refresh their jaded
souls. Existence is SO sad and COM
fOrtles' for many that to escape from it
for little while, even in Imagination,
by means of serial that puts its
heroine in continued jeopardy and only
extricates her from complicated series
of misfortunes after the villain has met
his Just doom and her lover has in
herited large fortune, is luxury not
to be despised. Not only do all man
kind like romance, but the majority
like it strong, extravagant; yes, even
impossible.
1t is mistake to suppose that only
the young care for fiction. have seen
old, old men and women, lowering dan
gerously near the grave, who were the
most confirmed and absorbed of novel
readers, particularly Ledger readers.
Having relied on it for romantic food
many years, they no more thought OF
giving it up than they thought of going
arefooted-couldn't have done so with
out suffering.
Mr.. Bonner told me of good old
man, pious and proper, who lived in a
Connecticut village and was the main
stay of one of the godliest of churches,
who tottered down to the posto lice
regularly every week to get his Ledger.
A relative, of anti-novel prejlaices, who
was visiting his family, expressed her
astonishment that he woull read NOV
els" "Oh, my dear, this only bit Of
a newspaper story" said the honest old
man, and went on with his sturdy fore
finger under the lines, chasing blaci-
eyed heroine through page and half
of sorrow and tribulation.
AS another instance of an elderly
persons fondness for stories, Mr..
Bonner told this: When foreman of
The Mirror Office he took his proofs
home to real at nights A serial by
Charles +. Briggs, called the "Trip
pings of Tom Pepper" was being
published. 1t was biographical in
character, and related the ups and
downs of Mr.. Peppers eventful career
very graphically. beginning with his
early childhood. Mr.. Bonner's mother
read each chapter in the proof, and
grew quite impatient at the delay be-
tween installments. When her son
laughed at her interest in the protracted
"fib," she said, why, Robert, 1 want
to see how the little fellow clme out" :"
And so they all want to see how the
characters they grow interested in
come out.