Madison times. (Tallulah, Madison Parish, La.) 1884-1???, 1884-03-22
THE TASTE FOR ROMANCE.
Old People Who are Anxious to Know How
the Story "wm Come Out"

Old People Who are Anxious to Know How
the Story "wm Come Out"
asked Mr.. Bonner if he had never
found it necessary to make any new de-
partures in consequence Of the changes
in literary taste; ifthe same order of
stories that pleased when people bad
reed less and had less to read pleased
now? He said he had in no way altered
his original ideas on the subject of edit
ing. He believes human nature to be
always the same in any xge-yesterday,
to-day and forever.
The Ledger's enormous constituency is
an index of the taste common to all
mankind-the taste for romances. All
the world likes to read stories. The
prosier and more uneventful the lives of
the readers, the greater their delight in
the exciting fortunes of the heroes and
heroines of the novel. Romance rests
them. 1t lifts them out of dullness of
everyday life, opens wide the gate which
leaps in the fair field of fancy and bids
them walk therein and refresh their jad-
ed souls. Existence is SO sad and COM
fortress for many that to escape from it
, for a little while, even in imagination, by
means of senal that puts its heroine in
continued jeopardy and only extricates
her from a complicated series of misfor-
tune after the william has met his Just
doom and her lover has inherited a
large fortune, is a luxury not to be des-
pissed. Not only do all mankind like ro-
mances, 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 dam
gerously near the grave, who were the
most confirmed and absorbed of novel
readers, particularly Ledger readers.
Having relied omit for romantic food
MANY years, theyn no more thought Oh
giving it up than they thought of going
barefooted-couldn't have done so with
out suffering.
MI. VI SOou oiu
man, pious and proper, who lived in
Connecticut village, and was the main
stay of one of the COOLEST of churches,
who tottere down to the post office reg
ularly every week to get his Ledger. A
relative, of ant;-novel prejudices, who
was visiting his family, expressed her
establishment that he would read "nOv.
els" "Oh, my dear, this is only bit of
a newspaper story" said the honest old
man, and went on with his sturdy fore
finger under the lines, chasing a black
eyed heroine through a page and half
of sorrow and tribulation.
As another instance of an elderly per
sons fondness for stories, Mr.. Bonner
told this: When foreman of the Mirror
office he took his proofs home to read at
night. serial by Charles + Briggs
called the 'Trippings OF Tom Pepper
was being published. 1t was Geographic.
al in character, and related the ups and
downs of Mr.. Peppers eventful career
very graphically, beginning with his ear.
ly childhood. Mr.. Bonner's mother read
each chapter in the proof, and grew quite
impatient at the delay between install.
ments. When her son laughed at heI
interest in the protracted "fib," she said
"Why, Robert, | want to see how the
little fellow came out" And so they all
want to see how the characters they
grow interested in come out.