Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1888-12-28
THE FIELD OF FICTION.
Influence of the Modern Novel and the
Extension of Its Impression.

FROM the boston ADVERTISER.
This is the age of fiction The geologist,
examining the buried fragments of mans
handiwork. tells us of human beings who in
habited our earth in prehistoric times, and
designates the periods in which they lived ac-
cording to the materials out of which their de-
gree of advancement enabled them to construct
implements and utensils. Thus we are told of
1.-THE stone age" and 1.-The iron age" It is the
proud boast of our present century that we ac-
complished the most characteristic and endur-
ing works, not by the labor of our hands. but
by the labor of our brains We desire that
those who come after shall Judge us. not
by our pottery and our arrow-heads, but by
our institutions and ideas. On both the infu-
ence of the modern novel has already made its
mark and ID likely. in the immediate future. to
extend its impression. So distinctive and wide
reaching is ii that that the social geologist who
examines the strata of civilization for the lat
ter part of the nineteenth century and the
early part of the twentieth will probably label
this epoch 1.-The fiction age.'
The plain tendency is to settle or attempt to
settle all living questions by process Of story
telling. Dickens and Reade turned their hands
to this work with conscious purpose and signal
effect, and the power of Uncle Toms Cabin was
felt throughout the world. Not many years
ago the prime minister of Great Britain was
man who had gained his fame, in the first in
ISOLATION for his last political defeat in writing
Endymion, and whose avowed ambition was to
govern England on the plan outlined in his
novels. Jules Verne has given us a multitude
OF seml-scientific novels 1t is now in order for
| a cunning and imaginative disciple Of Darwin
or Agassiz to undertake a final settlement of
the debate between evolutionists and creation
lists by sparkling romance. II DR.. o. w.
Holmes had not reached an age at which even
a man OF his almost perennial vigor is apt to
CIrrr, d. al.
would not be unreasonable to expect from him
love story that would strike a staggering
blow in the long contest between homeopath-
lists and practitioners of the older schools of
medicine. John Ruskin made mistake when
he accused Whistler of Throwing a not of
paint in the public's face" He might have de-
molished his antagonist in the pages of Il
novel and saved beside the famous sixpence
which he was constrained to pay as the result
of libel suit. There is no field of inquiry
or dispute into which the novel writer now
hestates to enter.
1t is of little use to attempt to stem any tide
of fashion, whether in millinery or literature.
and there is more likelihood that the liberty of
the press will run into extravagant license than
that it will be unduly curbed. Mere disap-
prevail OF the stretch of any tendency will not
therefore affect it except by the slow process OF
nolding or converting public opinion. But
there Is considerable weight of opinion that
the lndiscriminate appropriations and ventures
OF the novel writers OF the day often pass out
side the legitimate range of fiction and are
positively misleading and harmful For not to
speak Of the artistic objection to the hybrid
products which are often turned out, it is
urged that there is apt to be a mischevous
confusion of reason and emotion in the consid-
Grafton Of subjects Of grave Importance, that an
impartial and competent treatment can
scarcely be hoped for from the nature of the
composition. and that the substitution of fiction
for ostensible fact is made, whether consciously
or not, in peculiarly insidious and impressive
manner
Above all it is pointed out with evident truth
that there is an increasing tendency to make
the novel argumentative rather than illustra-
tive, and to enforce point. not by some vivid
life picture as Reade and Dickens and George
Eliot did, but by serving as advocate Judge.
and jury, and controlling the production Of
witnesses and refutation at will. This Pooh
Bah method, it is noted. is employed with no
little popular effect Without considering at
present what force there is in these objections.
it is well to bear in mind that they exist and
are entitled to hearing