Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1890-12-16
TRAINING The IMAGINATION.
0eu the Newell Drings Dt9ersat Csssse
N Snciefx lnta SrsnpathS.

TRAINING THE IMAGINATION.
Heu the Newell Drinss Di1ersas Glasses
Of society 1ate sympathS-
There is something pathetic. net Who'll
" sad, in the thought of the poor boy or
girl who finds delight in fictitious annals
in high life. Boy and girl put them
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 bus
thinking makes it So and imagination
has no cage. Poverty is beguiled Of its
sting, tell is hghtered and ennui gives
way to round Of noble pleasures and
dramatic scenes. until the curtain falls
upon bafiled villainy and triumphant
virtue.
Those humble readers are not troubled
by the doubts and csvilings 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 sames But high
life would know low life. too. Scholars
and courriers like Virgil and Horace
were in love with pastoral scenes and
rustic pleasures Marie Antoinette
would be dairy maid, and her royal
husband would be 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 a per
functory courtesy. The millionaire.
outworn with the care Of his wealth.
looks longingly back 20 the simple labors
and untronbled sleep of his youth. The
statesman, weighed down with response
bility and beset by importunate suitors
for favor and influence, has pensive, re-
g-etful moments in which he reflects
that even Il gratiiied 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
patty possible between the ioftiest and
the lowliest station.
We live in many aad 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 c,Sin 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 an" quarter of Picking
or Hankow than in the slums of New
York and London? Do we need to g
upon long journeys or to turn back tht
pages of history to find the lowest depths
cf human degradation: But what do We
l--ow of those people in their filth,
novels and noisome tenements? Wha
sympathy. what tie Of human brather
hood, what sense of fellowship exists be
tween the cultivated and comfortable
few and the benighted millions of tn,
hopeless poor:
We cannot paint picture with mere
statistics. What signifies u unit NOR,
or less in the grand total of human de
pravity and misery? We must knock a
tie doors of poverty and sin; we mus
look into the eyes of the suffering ant
lift the burdens of the heavy laden be
| fore we can really know the worst o
what is called low life. Well, in GU
day the literature of imagination has es
sayed that sad task.
The novelist goes now where none bu
| the doctor and the most Jealous philan
| thropist have ever gone before upon ;
mission Of charity. SO far as he dare
| he paints the picture of that under worl,
to the life. He is not SO humorous a
| Dickens or so satirical as Thackeray, bu
he tries to be severely accurate in tn
| delineation of every detail, and he bring
| to his work the artists eye and the sur
geons nerve He docs not need to writ
the moral down in plain black and white
As the sightless eyes of the blind ant
| the r1aimed limbs of the cripple tel
their own story and make mute appea
to every generous heart, the squalid sur
roundings and sorlid struggles he lie
picts speak loud words of warning AM
comm and. New Orleans Picayune.