The Dickinson press., 1890-12-27
TRAINING 5He IMAGINATION.
How tho Novel Brings Different Classes
Of Society Into Sympathy.

soetNitN0 l6e iWt<SttNN ! lONs
How tho Novel Brings Different Classes
Of Society Into Sympathy.
There is something pathetic, not who'll
ly sad, in the thought Of the poor boy or
girl who finds delight in fictitious annals
in high life. Boy and girl put thom-
selves respectively in the place Of hero
and heroine. They are richly dressed,
and in marble halls they taste the sweets
of elegant leisure, Of power and praise
Nothing is either good or bad but
thinking makes it SO" and imagination
has no cage Poverty is beguiled of its
sting, toll is lightened and ennui gives
way to round of noble pleasures and
dramatic scenes, until the curtain falls
upon baf1ed villainy and triumphant
virtue.
Those humble readers are not troubled
by the doubts and cavilings of the ex-
acting realist. They are happy in that
they can take so much for granted. If
they have not had the real thing they
think SO, and so far Us they arc con-
cerned is it not oil the same? But high
life would know low life, too. Scholars
and courtiers like Virgil and Horace
were i'll love with pastoral scenes and
rustic pleasures. Marie Antoinette
would bo dairy maid, and her royal
husband would he a locks,nith.
In her palatial home tho proud beauty
grows weary of the rolling hours, over
burdened as they are with tho require
ments of an artificial society and per-
functory courtesy. The millionaire,
outworn with the care of his wealth,
looks longingly back to the simple labors
and untroubled sleep of his youth. The
statesman, weighed down with RESPONSE
bility and bcset by importunate suitors
for favor and influence, has pensive, rc-
gretful moments in which he reflects
that even a gratificd ambition may have
cost too much.
Imagination brings surcease of repin-
ing, temporarily at least, to all of these
exalted personages. The democratic
novel, the romance of low and of com
mon life, puts tho great in touch with
the masses of their kind, and makes sym
pathy possible between the loftiest and
the lowliest station.
We live in many and different worlds
in reality; we meet and lninglo with
each other in imagination. When we
speak of civilization, of enlightened So
ciety, of progress, we havo in mind a
comparatively small part of the human
race. Scratch tho skin of Russian" /"
said Napoleon. "and you will find a
Tartar"
But how much of our civilization is
more than skin deep? In tho great cities
of Europe and America do wo not find a
barbarous population just beyond the
purlicus of wealth and fashion, which
only the fear of the constable keeps in
check9 Is ignorance more dense or vice
moro shameless in any quarter of Pcking
or Hankow than in the slums of New
York and London? Do wo need to 90
upon long journeys or to turn back the
pages of history to find tho lowest depths
of human degradation? But what do we
know of those people in their filthy
novels and noisome tcnements9 What
sympathy, what tie of human brother
hood, what sense of fellowship exists be.
tween the cultivated and comfortable
few and tho benighted millions of the
hopeless poor7
We cannot paint picture with mere
statistics. What signifies q unit more
or less in the grand total of human de-
pravity and misery? We must knock at
the doors of poverty and sin; we must
look into the eyes Of the suffering and
lift the burdens of the heavy laden be-
fore we can really know the worst of
what is called low life. Well, In our
day the literature of imagination has es.
sayed that sad task.
The novelist goes now where none but
tho doctor and tho most Jealous philan.
thropist have ever gone before upon a
mission of charity. So far as he dares
he paints the picture of that under world
to the life. He is not so humorous as
Dickens or so satirical as Thackeray, but
he tries to be severely accurate in the
delineation of every detail, and no brings
to his work the artists eye and tho sur
geon's nerve. He does not need to write
the moral down in plain black and white.
AS the sightless eyes of the blind and
the MANNED limbs Of tho cripple toll
their own story and make a mute appeal
to every generous heart, the squalid sur
roundings and sordid struggles ho de-
picts speak loud words of warning and
command.-New Orleans Picayune.