Wichita eagle., 1890-02-07


stalls of hotels and railway stations 70
at least partial understanding of how
fiction almost usurps. at present. the en-
tire domain of belles-lettres; and will
respect to the much belauded ''enter
prise" of journalism, what weightier evi
dence could be presented than that OF
the bulky quintuple and sextuple sheet!
which now and then rear their presumpt
uous little hillocks from our breakfas
tables? In the latter it would appear a.
if all phases of life eventually find por
! travail.
Though it may be iron in the soul Of
the novelist to say so, the newspaper has
actually achieved style. Grammar.
forsooth! We must look to. our OWL
verbs and nominatives nowadays, les,
Printing House square prod our choices
prose with its pen and hold up before
merciless throngs hideous, wriggline
blunder Of whose existence we had not
dreamed. Day after day we stare, wide
| eyed, upon certain ''effects" lavishly
thrown away, as we can't help calling it.
on the merest ephemeral descriptions
And then we have pang of envy when
we tell ourselves that nervous and forci-
bic writing can actually be accom-
pished, ike this, by man who knows
he is Of necessity only manufacturing
''alms for oblivion"
We, the professional novelists, have
grown SO careful how we fling any pre-
| cious bits of art into that huge and
fathomless ocean Of the unsigned >
| We begin to look On the ethical side of
| the question, and TO assure ourselves that
| this writing as well as fellow can
write, without caring fig for any fame
! that may come of it, is q rather excel
lent straightjacket for the egotist. Then
the modern journalist, by his calm capac-
! ity, wrought of drill and discipline, can
waken in the sensitive man of letters a
pang of shame. Here is our famous
Robinson, pet of the publishers, who
can't write, let Us say, except with a
certain kind Of pen, at a certain kind Of
desk, seated on a certain kind OF chair
bottom and amid sepulchral silence. But
with Jones, firm OF nerve and unspoiled
by daintiness, it is quite different mat
ter. He can reel you off his astonish-
ingly good copy in a tiny little room
that smells of sour paste and trembles
with the cacophonies of the elevated
Now that realism has gained such
headway with the big public of novel
readers, the newspaper is becoming all
the more a rival of the fictionist. So
close is the analogy between their pro-
ductions that the reporter constantly
speaks of his own and his comrades
work as good or bad STORY" and un-
questionably SO regards it. The instant
that such effort as this deserves to be
called literature, its challenge grows a
more than formidable one. Not long
ago read in New York newspaper a
description Of an execution on which,
as it seemed to me, had been be-
slowed eloGuence and care of
very striking kind. In their thirst
for actuality, one is prone to ask
why readers should not prefer literary
power when thus expended upon nara
tiveS that are fragments cf living fact.
Beyond doubt preference of the sort is
augmenting, and one with its increase
directly proportionate to the skill and
strength of our developing journalists.
Any oneAwho glances through
newspaper OF the best character might
be apt to pronounce it in some respects
unique and spirited story book. Its
tales are treated with a reserve and dig
nifty Of expression that are no doubt the
heritage bequeathed us by great dead
styiists. At the same time they have
nothing of the old fashioned beginning,
middle and end about them. They
sometimes ''tIrn OUT with all the dis
NAL abruptness beloved by the Russian
story tellers. There is too freuuetly
neither conventional hero nor heroine,
and only few grizzly glimpses of hu-
manIty serve to replace their absence.
The stream of narration runs between
ragged banks and with haphazard cur
rent, but we feel that it mirrors no i'm |
agined sky, and that the weeds trailing
IN Its tides are a growth of no mythic |
meadows. Wien invested with authen-
tic art these little histories make very |
pungent and memorable reading. Be- |
sides, If there be q cult, a wave of ten |
dency, in their direction, all the more
must they demand respectful heed.
1t is not SO very long ago that "plot''
was an imperative essential in the Eng
Hsh novel, and to this popular require
ment Dickens again and again unhesi-
tatingly, though often bunglingly,
bowed. Thackeray, however, had from
the first sneered at the ancient methods,
and we all remember that passage in the
early part OF Vanity Fair" where the
humor now seems so cumbrous, and
where he tells us that he might have
made it dark and tempestuous night
instead of the s,lnshiny day IN Mayfair
that IL had the commonplace misfortune
really TO be. For Thackeray, both to his
frantic devotees and his more rational
observers, must be admitted as the first
real English naturalist in fiction after
Fielding. The world moves
along, in spite of certain well meant. if
efforts to the contrary.
And no stronger proof of this could be
brought forward than the way in which
novel writing is today being
j JuotAAANh sasid SOutll Il anu
priced form Of art by the tendency OF
the modern newspaper.
viii il also, in the course Of time, he
ecllpSed by the newspaper as well? |
confess that | sometimes tremble for the
craft of which am an earnest. if hum
bic, representative, when see with what
force and finish a thousand topics are
4 |