The prison mirror. [volume] (Stillwater, Minn.) 1887-1894, 1891-04-30
A Plea for the Old.

This is a plea for the old. Literary fads
of all sorts multiply and cover the earth,
but they are fads for the new. A Kipling
flashes across the heavens. and the idolators
fall down and worship. with hands over
their eyes to keep out the binding light. A
Mary E. Wilkins writes story of Il little
corner of New England life, and the maga-
zine editors Immediately put on their hats
and take the first train for Boston without
waiting for change of linen. A Barnum
with big show tent and the greatest con.
ceit on earth makes is name familiar to the
public, and behold, his wife's signature is
seen at the end of an article in the Ladies'
Home journal. A Rider Haggard tells the
most amazing tales in the most amazing
grammar, and the next week or the week
after some enterprising publisher announces
a novel by Haggard's brother, only to be
eclipsed by still more enterprising pub
Usher who advertiSeS volume of poems by
Haggard's mother. The adopted daughter
of niece of half sister by marriage of
Mr.. Gladstone writes novel, Mr.. HOwells
mentions it, and the book is all the rage
Senator ingalls, is defeated by farmer, and
the editor of New York weekly speedily
telegraphs to the defeated statesman for a
poem. and great daily publishes an inter-
view with the farmer senator on his opinion
of the ten greatest novels!
Meanwhile, Marcus Aurelius is forgotten;
Homer has narrow escape from being
crowded even out of the schools; Pascal and
Spinoza and Thomas Kempis are super
seded by the Rev. Howard MacQueary;
Sappho is overshadowed by Ella Wheeler
Wilcox; Sophocles by Jerome K. Jerome.
and Balzac by the Duchess"
When Stanley started across Africa he
carried with him many books, weighing in
all 1SO pounds. but as bis men lessened in
numbers and weakened through famine and
fighting and sickness the books were reluc-
tantly thrown away one by one, until there
remained only the Bible, Shakespeare. ''Sar-
tor Resartus," work on navigation, and
the Nautical Almanac tor 1877. Shakes
peare was afterward burned bY demand of
the foolish natives at Zinga. at Bonea. Car
lyle and the Navigation and the Almanac
were pitched away. and he had left only
the old Bible. I fear there be those who
would have thrown it aside and saved the
late Mr.. ROe's "Opening of Chestnut
Burr" Such person would doubtless
think ArchdeacOn Farrar lacking in good
literary judgment and taste when he said:
III all the DOOkS Ol Cuo WOIIu W0Io III d
blaze the first twelve which should snatch
out of the flames would be the Bible. the
'Imitatio Christi Homer, Eschylus, Thu
cydides. Tacitus. Virgil. Marcus Aurelius.
Dante. Shakespeare, Milton. Wordsworth. "
Alas! alas! the Archdeacon would allow
'"The Quick or the Dead?" to perish in the
flames!
The next time your semi-literary, inquis-
itorial friend asks you if you have read
''Looking Backward" say to him: mo;
but 1 have read PlatO's Republic You
are 1000 years ahead of me-" The philo-
sophy of Plato is more important even here
and to- day than all the visions of all the
Tolstois, to say nothing of the dreams of
the Bellamys.
It is mistake. however. to say that there
is nothing new under the sun. There are
some works of fiction of this decade so de-
cidedly new as to have been impossible at