The prison mirror. [volume] (Stillwater, Minn.) 1887-1894, 1893-08-17

SALTWATER, MIME
and innocent to make victims of. You
find them in all walks of life; in boards
of trade, the House of Representatives,
police and district courts, churches and
saloons. Always looking to advance
their own interests by the downfall of
another Many of the young men to-
day are leading lives of crime and idle
ness through falling into meshes of a
Fagin's net. Many of the men now con-
fined behind stone walls can look back
to the day they met genial Fagin.
There have been and always will be
such characters who are ever ready to
advance their own welfare by running
others. BRIGHAM.
Dickens introduces entirely too many
characters in his works. Their personal
descriptions are often prolonged into
lengthy biographies. If the hero puts
up at an inn for the night, it is not nee
essary to bore the reader with the inn
keepers family history. All such petty
details retard the plot. The reader
wants the plot to keep moving. He is
anxious to learn the fate of the chief
characters. He cares nothing for petty
incidences. Dickens novels are out of
date. Humdrum tales of daily life are
not suitable to the active minds of the
present. This progressive age demands
Fascinating fiction. 1t does not want
sermons on morality. Moralizing is en-
tirely out of place in fiction. A novel
should be work of fiction and not a
sermon. Rider Haggard and other
writer's of the same class have driven
Dickens from the field. His works are
not suitable to the reading public of to-
day. &C.
Probably the most interesting char
acterS in all Dickens, not excepting the
immortal Pickwick, and the celebrated
S. Weller Esq, is the quartette composed
of Oliver Twist, Old Fagin, Bill and
Nancy Sykes. 1t is of the last named
I wish to call attention. Pretty low
down in the social strata they all were,
but she most of all, for had she not Civ
en- everything to Bill? And when neg
lect, cruelty and blows came, with what
meek fidelity she clung to the beast.
Soothing his drunken sorrows, binding
up his wounds, and catering to his bes-
tial wants and yet her only reward a
vile name and viler blow. Oh love,
love where else art thou but in the heart
of woman. 1t is certainty such love
is not in the heart of man. There are
many thousand Nancys in the world,
and perhaps among us there may be
some who claim such one; if such
there be, all | can hope and say is, be
good to her. WAYNE.
***
We appreciate Dickens more thor
oughly perhaps than any other author
in the same field. This appreciation is
due in part to the admirable manner in
which he delineates the characteristics
of those who seem to possess no charac-
ter; also in part to the ease with which
author and character are separated.
His field of action is the most difficult
to describe, and one that requires
genius of peculiar order to do so cor
rectly. Nor does he weaken his charac-
ters by uniting in them the higher and
lower plains of society; he does not
raise them above their level, they live
and act in the sphere to which they be-
long. Nor does he portray an ideal or
a probable, but an actual character; nor
does he draw them with a touch here
and there, but he brings before us the
character already in existence. He be-
comes the glass through which we see
the clearly defined form of the object
before unseen. LEONARDUS.
Xxx
Dear little Dame burden! Who so
unfortunate as to have missed thy ac-
quaintance? Oft times we meet her
and pass her by unrecognized in the
heyday of our careless f-satisfaction.
She does not thrust herself into notice.
But when the soul is sore wounded and
the heart battered and bruised, dear lit
tie Dame Darden comes with her cheer
full smile and soft assuring voice; she
pours balm on the soul and puts cooling
lotions to the bruised heart. She will
not be repulsed. Her love of her kind