Morning journal and courier., 1889-04-11
The Coming Novel.


 The new novel may be published any day it may already have been written; and, although whatever else it may be, it is tole- rably certain to be quite different from any forecast of it. I confess am unable to con trol & prof.less curiosity on the subject Sporting prophets expend good deal of printers ink on speculations as to the proba- ble winners of the seasons races, and most of their prophecies are wrong; why have not as good 8 right to speculate about the coming novel! Everything that is to be will be evolved out of what now is; therefore the data must be here, if one only knew how to a new light on some of the already burning topics of the day, or will it raise 8 topic of it's owni
 current setting in the direction of the mar riage relation, with various off-shoots and adiuncts. The cities are scandslized, and the more they are scandalized the more rap- idly does the honest, inquisitive public buy up editions.
 If there is anything new to be learned about the marriage relation the public is ev- ever, the gist of the instruction received from this source amounts to affirming that the matrimonial yoke is often an irksome one, and that it might be expedient to either widen it considerably or to take it of alto gether, and-see what happens. Now there is in these suggestions nothing distinctly original. They are stated with little more color and sensationalism than has lately been the fashion in Anglo-Saxon literature, and that is all. But not to go farther afeld, one has recollections of a young person called Georges Sand, and of a novel called "Indi- ana." The method of getting the sexes to- gether that now prevails is not likely to be L. J;oo one indeed.
 Mere patching and alarming and sewing on Cor cutting off buttons will not do. But if onr novelist will discover in man or woman some hitherto unknown or unrecognized ele- ment, and will base his reform on that, something may come of it.
 The communistic or socialistic idea has also been coming to the surface in fiction lately, but with less popular success. The trouble with society at this moment seems to be, not it's theory, but it's practice; and the finest new bottle will not improve the flavor of bad wine. The latter would do if only the spirit were not SO perverse. If. how ever somebody would boldly proclaim that our forms are too good for our behavior, and that the way to harmony is to debass ideals, he would at least say something entertain ing. It is this doctrine of the innate good ness of human nature that makes us look so sceptical. Human nature is to be subjected lO uO lAWS, pcC6usc It lb ALtCo kO US d kdW unto itselfl No, I fear not. Propose to abolish law in order to find out how wicked we really are and am ready to listen. That might prove @ wholesome experience. Hell, I suppose, is a place where vice no longer pays the homage of hypocrisy to virtue. But it is rather a strong school to go to.
 But, after all, the great new novel may be new in much newer way than any of these. I cherish a vague hope-I scarcely know how to put it in words-that writer may appear who will affect us, not by what he says, but by dinr of inoculating with a certain ineffable feeling of spirit. What ever rhetoricians may affirm, the best things may sometimes be so called as to arouse sen timents not logically involved in them; we have all heard of the lady who was religious ly edified by the sound of the word "Mesop- otamia." Edgar Allen Poe caught at the skirts of the same principle, as We see in the "Nevermore" of his "Raven," in the sono- rous repetitions of the "Bells," and in such strange rhapsodies as 'Ulalume." Balzac too recognized the emotion producing power of mere sounds in words, and came near re- duoing it to science. To put it differently, there is a nearer way to the heart than through the intellect.
 The intellect is cold, and it chills or evis- cerates whatsoever passes through it. In physical converse with men, we pay far the unconscious gestures and expansion of body and face than we do to what they say. Cannot similar effect be produced in lite ratures How delightful to get your impress sion of 8 character in book, not from any set-word portrait, or even idiosyncraoy of speech, but from the sound and nature of the vowel combinations used in connection with him! This sounds very like nonsense. But I am pretty we'll convinced that the in- tellect is really the least respectable and in- teresting quality of man, and should well come any method of escaping it's frigid and formal interference, and getting something warm, shapeless, but moving like sweet perfume 8 rich voice. It may be done yet.