Little Falls transcript., 1886-04-16
Novel Reading on 81 the ocean. L,

3EsFis sI.
Hon. o. N. Richardson Of Iowa, IS
making q trip round the5world and
writes interesting letters to the Amer
lean Rural Home Describing the pas
sage on steamer from San Francisco
to Japan, he says:
% Novel reading is notable feature Of
steamer life, as tits OF homelife ashore.
The beaten tracks of our libraries run
not to the historical shelves, nor yet
to those Of science. The alcove OF re-
ligious reading is terra incognita, but
worn is the carpet and broad the Of
ten-troa track that leads to long and
closely packed shelves OF the novelist's
product. Ship reading is about the
same. JUST wait few days till the
NAL de mer has vanished, the novelty
OF the sea worn out, then make a
Ground up" of the reading matter. A
history or two, now and then a fairly
written book of travel, a magazine Or
two-and novels everywhere! Paul de
Kock in the hands of specialized men;
the vagaries OF Zola thumbed and
conned by matrons and maidens, the
lamentations Of Ouida, and here and
there better one by Black or Wal
lace, or some one else-all read and
read and passed from hand to hand
AS if the chief end and aim OF man, the
haven and hope of women, were to
cram their leisure hours and people
their ample brains with slip-shod
writing about imaginary situations,
high-spiced scenes and questionable
characters.
Even our Japan friends, what are
they reading liz their vertically lined
books? Romance. do you have
many novels in your language?"
asked the intently reading Asiatic.
"Oh, yes, we have very many
novels"
care their plots and characters
much like those of French and Yankee
writers-of home life, courtships, love
scenes, marriage, suicide, and social
fireworks in general?'
80, yes; they are very much tn
same, only l like them rather better
ours than yours"
eyes, but are your social habits
then, like ours7 For instance, you
are a young, unmarried man; you
know many nice young women; you
have picked out one you think you
would like make your wife--what do you
do about it? Court the girl, gain her
consent and then 60 and ask her par
ents If you may wed her.
80, no, no; that wouldn't do at all.
If | think the girl will make me q
good wife, / must go and ask her par
ents first. Our parents NEEDLE too
much with young folks love affairs.
They want to know all about it
what we talk about and think-iust
the same as they do in Europe. like
much better the way you do in Ameri-
ca, and we must have 1T that way,
too, sometime"
But where do you get the romance
for your books il the old folks do the
young iolks' counting, and don't al
low them any social latitude?"
"Oh, we'll. they think they do it all,
but they don't. Our young folks have
their way under the rose, and because
they strive for what they are denied,
there are plenty of things to write the
books about?'
SO 1t goes here and there and in
lands beyond the sea. sLove laughs
at locksmiths, and nature ever con-
tends for its own course-and age for
gets not youth. So thus it is that
the chairs and stools and shelves are
thickly strewn with warmly tinted,
often tainted, fiction books-why
these are closely held before bright
eyes, and closer yet to eyes grown din
with age; why heads, both young and
old, bow to the shrine of the romantic
goddess. On sea or land, at home or
far away, the same old father Adam
and dear old mother Eve hand down
and down the ever tempting and ever
welcome luscious Eden apple.