The Mt. Sterling advocate. (Mt. Sterling, Ky.) 1890-current, 1892-11-15
ODD MISTAKES of MovELIeTs.


Diet MIXED In Their Details
The average reader who skims
over the last railroad novel Is moi
likely 20 notice the many faults in
the flimsy construction of the plot.
But | often smile at the maidens
that wander in lonely woods q,
unearthly hours of night, always
clad in "a soft, white, clinging
gown" Now every girl knows that
the average maiden is too much
afraid Of tramps and snakes to wan
der In lonely woods. And then
she is not ''pale. but unspeakably
lovely" after such a tramp. No; an
ordinary girl who spends half a
night in messy" but damp couch
will wander home in the morning
full OF mud and cookie burs, her
bangs ma straight as cable on an
avenue car line and herself as cross
as a Seventh street policeman on
Saturday evening.
Another odd thing is the way
some pen pushers get mixed in their
weather reports. Some begin a
chapter at dawn, there are few
moments conversation, and, then the
"sun sets in lurid banks behind the
distant, empurpled mountains.
There is one novel, by The Ouch
ess, think, in which the chapter
opens with "a thick. drizzling mist
sitting down and enfolding the land
scape," and in a few moments the
hero is springing out of window
into the soft, mellow moonlight"
Evidently the weather possessed as
many phases as Marshall Wilder's
transformation tableaux.
There is one song-and it is a
sweet one, too-that furnishes q
brilliant example. In "Alice, Where
Art Thou2" one verse speaks of the
silver rain falling" while the first
one announces that the moon shines
bright" and that tits rays tinge the
forest" These seem, on ordinary oc-
casions. slightly contradictory state
ments.
/ have often wondered how long
some girls could go sans meals, sans
head, sans everything, for, judging
by some of the writers, neither the
hero nor the heroine Is subject to
any necessity of nature. Love is an
excellent thing. pearl of great
price" But a man in dirty collar
and no breakfast in his stomach
doesn't feel like counting the girl
who looks as limp as the man who
bet his last dollar on Sullivan and
went home to find his wife sick and
the grocers boy sitting on the stoop
with a six months bill.
The old fashioned novelist is played
out; the old fashioned hero has been
cremated, and the old fashioned her
oine sits in lonely solitude, forgot
ten by the busy throng. The wasp
waist, the lily flower that tainted at
every breath has passed slowly away.
May she rest in peacel And in her
place is the strong, healthy, rosy
checked. independent girl, who can
drive her horse and check her trunks
with equal ease and fascinating grace.
Blood and bounding health speak
from every rounding curve, and
the dainty, simpering. lackadaisical
maiden of bushes, tremors and sighs
dwells in innocuous desuetude, let
us hope. forever.
There let her rest, by the side of
the hero with the short sword and
dark, gloomy eyes" who rode about
on borrowed horse and whose only
object was to disturb the peace of the
commonwealth. Gone are the per
feet heroes, the faultless heroines,
and in their place reign men and
women-fesh and blood-with the
passions that sink them to the brute
and elevate them to the divinity
Washington Post.