Pullman herald. [volume] (Pullman, W.T. [Wash.]) 1888-1989, 1891-05-29
TRAINING THE IMAGINATION.
How the Novel Brings Different Glasses
of Society Into Sympathy.

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 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 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 as they are con-
cerned is it not all the same? But high
life would know low life, too. Scholars
and courtiers 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 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 q 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 a Russian"
said Napoleon, "and 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
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 a picture with mere
statistics. What signifies 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
mission of charity. So far as he dares
he paints the picture of that under world
to the life. He is not so humorous az
Dickens or so satirical as 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 the 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