The Hartford herald. [volume] (Hartford, Ky.) 1875-1926, 1888-01-25

TTOtestautisin tue three great epOcus OI
our world.
But while there Is a literature that ell
evates, ennObles and sweeten the
amenities Of life, there Is q literature
that IL bleak aud barren, san y des-
crt unrelieved by M island Of green
or even the glimmering mirage of u
grove or fountain far away. Tmaeina-
ton can construct palaces and enthrone
idols, and indolent victims may Won
der in many devious tract through
( fairy fields where lovers WOO In search
Of the golden fruits of fable. A story
that melts US with its pathos, subdues
us with its beauty. enthralls us with
its powers thrills us with its portraiture,
charm. US with jts truth, and fasci-
mates US with its strange and startling
II home in the Republics Of letters"
But in cessant wanderings In the realm
Of fiction and romance ~ like a super
fluffy of honey. 1t requires more than
honey to produce muscle and bone and
blood. And 1t requires something
more than romance to give vigOr to the
brain and strength to the soul. The
novel is a small fragment in literature.
1t 10 not the highest form Of thought.
Prof Swing compares 1t to the stained
glass or fretwork Of the temple and not
temple itself. How true! 1t Is mere
leaf on the COrinthian column and not
the column itself. Look ut the gram
deur aud majesty of that TEN pie erect
ed by the great philosophers and
sciences, histories and poems Of our
world! See how 1t Is aisled and piller-
ed and domed, with the glory of
Creator everywhere SPREAD out in
beauty and enchantment Compare
such temple with u little stained
glass, IA little fretwOrk, a few acan-
thus leaves, frescoes and mosaics The
one will find the mind with adoring
wonder, the other is little regslement
of the eye. To change the figure in
one. we find grandly chiseIed heroes, in
the other half-deciphered shadowy
characters, instead of seeing real
Ulysses and Achilles, we shave dim,
hieroglyphic shapes, -prites and spooks
Pickering on the page, or little fairy
queens standing in the soft and silvery
moonlight and shaking their ringlets to
the wind. Such shadowy phantOms
and attenuated entities may seem
Queenly garlaDded in poetic dictiOn, but
they are only flies embalmed In amber.
They are rs uninfluential IN lifting the
soul to mountain tops AS moonbeams
are In melting the ice-castles in the
Attic Sea.
The worlds of beauty lay around
Homer, Virgil, Dante, Milton, Words
worth and Coleridge, aud our own
Bryant and Longfellow? To them, the
earth was girt with an aureole of beau
ty, they heard music in the teapot and
saw landscapes reveling in magnif-
cence the far-famed vale of cashmere in
the clustering faces of happy family.
Though Homer, Dante and Milton,
the unmatched trio learnt In suffering
what they taught In song, yet they
reveled IN a world compared with
which the cOlOrs in the rainbow, the
peals of the sea, the diamonds of earth,
the glories of art, and even the firma-
ment flashing with artillery Of unutter-
able splendor are tame and paltry. In
the hands of these men vice grew pale
with fright. Milton and Dickens could
blanch the cheeks Of tyrants and ring
the knell OF their departing crueIties
They dashed hypocrisy rs with u seven
fold scorpion scourge. The influence Of
literature is as far reaching as the cir
cumambient air. 1t will radiate itself
like the impartial sunlight when true
to life kindle light upon the mountains,
aud pour splendor In the wales and
make real the "varieties of light, COM
binations of stars; and rays, and jewel
ed reflections" OF Dante's Paradise this
side the grave. J. B. WHITFORD.
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