Omaha daily bee., 1895-10-13

warmed by enthusiasm, books full of turmoil
and ebulltlon, from which emerge men and
women who by reason OF their genuine vital
force, show us that the race, with all its COM
mercialism and materialism, Is yet capable OF
a large and liberal sweep of emotion, such
books come from the realm OF romanticism.
And romanticism, we have been told by the
eminent authorities, Howells, Boyeson, Zola,
is dying Of bloodlessness, of starvation, for
the stories upon which she feeds have been
often told that they no longer nourish her.
What then is the meaning of this sudden
influx of romantic novels? Why is 1t that
Stevenson, Crockett, Barrie Anthony Hope,
Conan Doyle, Gilbert Parker, Stanley Wey-
man, have suddenly attained such prominent
positions in the world of letters, and why do
they write of Scotch raiders and French
Hugeonots of Indians from the new world
and gypsies from the old?
1t is because there is always a vital relation
between the deep, instructive, natural prefer
ence OF the reading public and the activity
Of its writer's so when from no single per-
sonal impulse, but from general movement
which could no more be helped than could a
change in the social or political world, men,
weary OF the books in which there is no ro-
nance, no poetry, feel that in their own lives
the realities are too grim and sordid and ever
present to I'LL their novels to the exclusion of
all else, then these young writer's spring up
in response to the demand Of the hour as
champions of the new romanticism.
fOr IL is not true that romantlclSm is dead
or dying; neither has realism had its day.
Each is as old as the world, and each is ever
young and appears in new strength and under
new gulse at each new literary period. for
as art Is progressive it never quite repeats
itself and tho the strong strenuous delight
in doing and daring which pervades the house
Of the wolf, the refugees or kidnapped is the
same as that which vitalZes old mortality,
"93." or the robbers, yet the time spirit
which haunts the books of Crockett, Wey-
man or Stevenson show that they have been
surrounded and governed by circumstances
different from those which imprisoned Scott,
Hugo Schiller and the romanticists of an
earlier day and different Cline
For romantcism, which is the form that
idealsm In literature often takes, means diff
ferent things in different countries, different
things at different times, in accordance with
tho school or tendency with which 1t comes
into collision. 1t comes usually at periods
when men, tired OF plain, practical things, de-
mand or art that II show them not only the
actual and present, but the potential and pos
sible; when hungry for eloquence and thirsty
for poetry they turn to art for the intel
lectual excitement which cannot be found in
the dull and conventional.
Today 1t is placed In opposition to the
realism which has assumed such varying
phases in the work Of Zola, de Balzac, Flau-
bert. Tolstoi, Turgeuef Howells, James and
Garland. according to the race and individual
temperaments of these authors.
Each man is product of his own time and
II these men have preached the doctrine Of
the importance of the real facts of life, IL
they have formulated their creed in books in
which imagination plays no part, and In
which niceness of observation and minuteness
OF analysis are the most prominent character
istics, II is because they have lived in an age
OF scientific development and have been so
Influenced by 1t as to think that science must,
In its rapid growth, supplant art. the pho
tographer take the place Of the artist, the re-
porter that Of the novelist. And it is true
that time which heeds only the call Of cold
blooded reason, and which refuses to take
even its religion on trust, needs its novels to
be built Of sterner stun than fairyland can
give; requires its stories to be marked by
fidelity 10 experience and probability of mo-
tive. But II Is not true that in learning to
place proper value on the things that we
can see. hear and taste, on lhe mere pal
pable, that we lose all sense of the subtle
values Of life and art; We do not believe that
the truthful treatment OF material neeessi-
tates the omission Of the spirit element, and
We refuse TO be thrilled and inspired by the
dull and commonplace as We are by the dra-
matte and unusual. This the reallsts nave
failed TO comprehend; in their efforts TO
faithfully copy and reproduce the life around
them they have lost their sense Of proportion