Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1886-12-30
1887.

Another centennial" date. that of the
Federal Constitution. We have been
nation one hundred years. It is a pretty
date to write: after the stiff SIS the pen
flourishes so easily down the tail of the
Z. The years have somehow run awav
very fast since 1860, going dowuhill to
the end of the century. In fourteen short
years more the Drawer will be trying in
its faithfulness to the twentieth century.
to keep out of its columns the facetiae
of the nineteenth. The nineteenth cen
tury of which we are so proud now, will
be analysed and criticised and condemn
ed as we now condescend to talk about
the eighteenth. On the day that 1901
comes in, the same able writer's who the
day before, in the press, used the term
nineteenth century" as if it were kind
of final achievement in itself, Will turn ON
1t in patronizing manner. They seem
great many years, 1886, do they not?
They are really only little fragment Of
time, which has dignity only from the
fact that we are adding to it. It is an
odd conceit we have of it. Looked at
IN one way, it is a respectable date, but
how long shall we be able to add to it
and keep 1T going in the world? There
have been several attempts at cOntinu-
Gus date, but they have all broken down.
How long shall we keep up ours? 1t is a
pity for scientific purposes that we could
not have had universally, as the Hebrews
nave, continuous date. Our breaking
tlne IL two IN this way causes historical
confusion, leads to an unjust estimate
OF the past, and adds to our conceit. 1t
gives the impression that the his
torical stream is not continuous; indeed,
we absurdly try to make it run
both ways from what we call the year l.
Hence much of the theological difficulty
in making people think the New Dispense
ton is actually continuation of the Old
Dispensation. We begin with our and
run it up forward, with an increasing
sense of power. And we turn about and
cast it up backward for the ancient ma
tions, endeavoring to run the civilizations
of antiquity into the ground somewhere.
1t gives false mpression-if we may
say it, a ''petering OUT appearance to the
old nations. Take the Egyptians, for
example. They seem TO be wasting away
In time toward US, losing year after year
instead of gaining. We know, indeed,
but we have to learn it painfully, that the
Egyptians did not live backward in this
way. 1t is, of course, absurd to suppose
that Menes, when he came to his throne
in Memphis, dated his order to dig the
first canal 1904, according to Marietta, or
1928 according to Bunsen, or 2700 accord
ing to Wilkinson, or whatever it was, and
that every year thereafter ne dropped
one year-5OO3, 1922, 2699, and so on.
And yet this is the way it appears to our
minds, with our queer chronology. Look
cd q f. Nv 10 nt oh Of 4 70
this 1887. Nor is it new. The Pharaoh
who use it-and no one knows what
it was-no doubt was conscious
that it had been used before him, ana he
regarded it as merely the beginning of
the years that Egypt would pile up in in
creasing glory. The Pharaoh who wrote
1887 may have had some conceit IN the
figures, but it was a cheap pride. The
vain attempt of the Pharaohs in this di-
rectiOn ought to make Us modest of our
little achievement in the way of a date.
All the peoples before US have doubtless
battered themselves that their eras
would endure as long as the world lasts. |
We are interested IN this year 1887, |
however the court was about to say
when it interrupted itself-not because it
IS a centeniel year, or to speculate wheth- |
or it will be a year of war, or earthquakes |
CT prohibition, or droughts, but to see
whether it is good year for realism" in
fiction, or whether the ''idealists' will be-
gin to get an inning. It is such seasaw
world that one can only keep his head by
taking long historical perspective, |
through all the ages. We want to stick
TO facts, but there are SO many sorts OF !
facts, material and immaterial, and hu- |
man nature is double, and men are per-
verse. They are so unreasonably interest |
I'd, even in this scientific age, in the !
Arabian knights. It is absurd that |
camel driver should rise to marry the
laughter of the Grand Vizier and become
5rand Vizier himself, and rule over the
he kingdom. In order to be true to life
lie should have continued to be a camel
lriver till his camel died, and everything
vent wrong with him, and he married
woman who drank, and took the hasheesh.
md ended as a beggar It is much better
FOR US to read about this sort of camel
lriver than the other; but somehow we
lave a sneaking fondness for that unreal
toay about Joseph in the Bible, who was
put into a pit, and sold as a slave, and
;ame to rule over Egypt, and be
"a biggar man than old" Pharaoh.
f Joseph had lived in France, that
incident would have been very
handled with more 'reality"
nd we should have had misery all round.
t was wholly unnatural, that career of
Joseph, almost as much as that of the boy
abraham Lincoln, who started from a
much lower social position than that of
Joseph, and came to be President of the
United States. We ought to be thankful
hat in the year 1887 he will have become
Legendary person. Nature has no
BUSINESS to interfere with fiction in this
7ay.
After all, the philosophers are merely
about a definition. 1t is as
lecessry to satisfy in fiction the higher
spirations of the mind as It's lower ten
Iencies; "h1gh life'' it as real, all admit,
IS slow life" Purity and virtue are just
IS ''real" as their opposites Though not
% common), and the steady contempla-
ion of them in fiction IS more likely to
,e enabling than the contemplation of
he inferior and the vulgar. 1t is not a
lew notion il the world but it is a queer