St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1889-03-18

While many of the modern novelists
are striving after the realistic, too many
of them show maudIin tendency to
make things wind up in satisfactory
manner. After writing a narrowing
story of guilt and crime, they appar-
emily think it necessary to provide a
mild antidote in the shape of happy
conclusion. This is not artistic, and to
a critical reader acts as an emetic. Much
has been written and said about Robert
Eismere," but the awful anti-climaX of
the last paragraph has apparently
been lost sight of in the criticisms
which have appeared in print. That
last paragraph spoils the whole story.
If it had been simply omitted, and the
reader left in entire doubt as to the
future, the narration would have
formed perfect dramatic work of art.
After making Mrs. Elsmere's puritanic
opposition to her husbands advanced
views the striking figure of the work,
the axis round which the whole fabric
revolves, it is crude to make her sud
denly abandon all her deeply-rooted
preiudices, and for no other reason than
Roberts death, continue his work. It
is worse than crude, it is inartistic and
unnatural.
The author of Robert Elsmere errs i'm
good company, however. Charles
Kingsley in his greatest work makes
the same mistake. Though love doubt
less works wondrous things, it is not
what is expected of an artist like Kings
ley to make his hero, Raphael Aben-
Ezra, start out with his dog in search
of man, and then meekly at the beck
of woman, and a woman without any
very startling attributes, renounce his
preconceived ideas, give up his search,
and adopting Christianity settle down
into staid domesticity. Moreover
Christianity as Raphael Aben-Ezra
SAW it under the most unfavorable
conditions, was scarcely thing to at
tract an astrological mind like his.
Kingsley apparently realized this, and
to bolster up his story drags st. Angus
tine in as the medium of Raphaefs con-
version. While Hypatia's life and
death form grand story, leading up to
the outStretched arms of the palIid
Christ upon the cross. The side story
though of the love affairs of Raphael
and Victoria spoils the dramatic effect.
%t
In marked contradistinction to these
two books are all of Zola's and some of
Dickens works. Zola'S latest 'sLe
Reye." is perfect in construction. The
last paragraph is what the whole story
has been gradually leading the reader
up to. From the finding of the half
frozen girl in the porch of the Cathedral,
through the various stages of her dream
life, her romantic and love affair, which
is more dream than reality, the por-
trayal of the ghosts of the former ladies
of Hautec9r and the stories of their
deaths, all lead perfectly naturally to
the death of the heroine in the supreme
triumph to her emotion. After her
glorious marriage to her hero it is only
fitting that she should die in his arms.
-
The climax in the ''Tale of Two
Cities " is perfect. Again in this mas
terpiece of Dickens the whole tendency
of the story, the every detail, is but
preparation for the heroic death on the
guillotine of Sidney Carton. Had he
escaped by some miraculous means,
known only to writer's of fiction-had
Agnes in lie Reve" lived happily
ever after, as so many of these latter
day novelists would, in the tenderness
OF their dear feminine hearts, undoubt-
edly make them-the whole effect
would have been spoiled. If modern
novelists would but take the master
pieces as their models, they would not
be guilty of such errors of Judgment.