Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1884-10-23
6raut County Nerald.
Prof. Swings Lecture.

The universal verdict of those who
were fortunate enough to hear the lee
ture Monday evening, is that it was one
of the finest ever delivered in Lancaster.
BY way of introducing his subject Tho
Philosophy of Novel" he enumerated
five "line arts: Painting, Sculpture,
Architecture, Music and Literature. He
defined .'line art'' as one in which the
beoutifulis sought. OF these, Literature
is by far the broadest and most nearly
perfect. Architecture can express n
few ideas of height, breadth, symmetry,
&C., but then its voice becomes silent
Painting and sculpture can say but
little more TO us, and music is narrow
art-like stream confined between
narrow banks, it is impetuous and in
tense, but is limited. But literature is
boundless, like the sea. An authors
productions give n picture of his mind
and soul, and each faculty of the mind
and soul of man has its own form of
literary expression. History is the
product of memory and Imagination.
Poetry of the heart, with the central
idea of beauty in the symmetry and
correspondence in the lines. And now
the novel As form of literature, the
greatest of The fine arts, (though for
the novel he did not claim the highest
rank in the art-history and the litera-
ture of morals and religion ranking
before it, he must show that it seeks the
beautiful
The beautiful in novels is always an
ideal woman. An ideal woman has
been considered in all ages as the type
of beauty. The Greeks were the first
to approach success in representing her,
either in sculpture or painting-but
they failed in some particulars. He
showed the absurdity of attempting to
represent beautiful idea by the picture
of man, and confessed that no artist
| had ever asked FOR his likeness to rep
resent the perfectly beautiful state
ment that was taken at its face value
by the audience. But lest the male por-
ton of the audience might think the
beautiful woman was the only essential
element in the novel, he told them that
a man always made his appearance
sooner or later and fell in love with this
beautiful woman. But the object Of a
novel is not to lead the reader through
a love scrape to its successful termina-
ton By this means the novelist makes
the subtlest and most searching analysis
of human nature. Instead of writing
dry treatise on some subject, which
no one would read, he leads the reader
along through his subject in the COM
pany of the beautiful woman.
Jonathan Edwards wrote a treatise on
the Human VIII. which comparatively
few had read. and fewer understood
Auerbach wrote "0n the Heights, y
showing how a woman's will had
wrought out her own salvation, and
thousands had read and understood.
He named but few novelists, and showed
how each had taken that way to give
{ to the world their views of History,
/ morals. Religion, etc, bringing in just
enough beautiful women to throw over
the pages charm. The genuine novel
. must be couched in refined language,
: must have broad purpose Such novels
!. will broaden our minds and keep us
! from narrowing down orr lives as mosi
! men do. The only fault we find with
the lecture is that it was too short.