The Somerset reporter. [volume] (Skowhegan, Me.) 1868-1909, 1890-12-18
YRklNlNG. HE IMAGINATION.
How the Novel brings Different Glasses
of SnciriX Into SNmpp thN.

How the Novel brings Different Glasses
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 aud girl put them
selves respectively in the place of here
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 1t so, and Imagination
has no cage. Poverty is bcguiled of its
sting, toll is lightened and ennui gives
way to round of noble pleasures and
dramatic scenes. until the curtain fall,
upon bafiled yillainy and triumphant
virtue.
Those humble readers are not troubled
by the doubts and caviluEs Of the eX
acting realist. They are happy in that
they can take so much for granted. II
they have not had the real thing they
think so, and so far as they are con
cerned is it not all the same, But high
life would know low life, too. Scholar,
and courtiers like Virgil and Horac,
were in love with pastoral scenes and
rustic pleasures. Marie Antoinettt
would be a dairy mad, and her royal
husband wpull be a locksmith.
In her palatial home the proud beauty
grows weary of the rolling hours, over
burdened as they are with the 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 beset by importunate suitors
for favor and influence, has pensive, re-
gretful moments in which he reflects
that even a gratifed 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 the 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 mingle with
each other in imagination. When we
speak of civilization, of enlightened So
ciety, of progress, we have in mind a
comparatively small part of the human
race. Scratch the skin of Russian, "
said Napoleon, land you will find a
Tartar"
But how much Of our civilization is
more than skin deep? In the great cities
of Europe and America do we not find a
barbarous population just beyond the
purlieus of wealth and fashion, which
only the fear of the constable keeps in
check? Is ignorance more dense or vice
more shameless in any quarter of Picking
or Hankow than in the slums of New
York and London? Do we need to &c
upon long journeys or to turn back the
pages of history to find the lowest depths
of human degradation? But what do we
know of those people in their filthy
novels and noisome tenements? What
sympathy, what tie of human brother
hood, what sense of fellowship exists be-
tween the cultivated and comfortable
few and the benighted millions of the
hopeless poor?
We cannot paint picture with mere
statistics. What signifies II 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
the doctor and the most Jealous philan-
thropist have ever gone before upon a
mission of charity So far ~ ha- darag
he paints the picture of that under world
to the life. He is not SO humorous as
Dickens or so satirical rs Thackeray, but
he tries to be severely accurate in the
delineation of every detail, and he brings
to his work the artists eye and the sur
geon's nerve He does not need to write
the moral down in plain black and white.
AS the sightless eyes Of tho blind and
the MANNED limbs of the cripple tell
their own story and make a mute appeal
to every generous heart, the squalid sur
roundings and sordid struggles he de.
picts speak loud words of warning and
command. New Orleans Picayune.