The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-11-18
GEORGE IT. c4B1E SPEAKS.

at United Church Last EVening-Value of
 the Novel--The Utilities to be Observed
 Novels Better for Children Than News-
 papers-BOOker T. Washington to Speak
 Next Sunday Evening.
 The services at the United church last evening were under the auspices of the Mems Sunday Evening club.
 Although the evening was a stormy one, yet many were present to hear the distinguished American novelist George W. Cable, deliver very interesting lec- ture on ''The Moral Utility of the Nov el."
 MT. Cables lecture was preceded by singing, prayer and reading from He- brews, thirteenth chapter.
 The president of the club announced that President Booker T. Washington of Tuskegee, Alabama, would speak next Sunday evening and that a collec- tion would be taken at that service to assist MT. Washington in his work among the colored people of this coun- try.
 He then introduced MT. Cable in a few appropriate words. MT. Cable said:
 
 say few words about MT. Washington, and I am glad of the opportunity to do so for I am personally acquainted with him. To-day no man stands more as a representative of the whole colored race than does Booker T. Washington. He stands as the last hope of his race, and for the only practical sort of effort to purge this nation of the wrong it has perpetrated against the colored race. commend him to your attention and your liberality."
 The subject, ''The Moral Utility of the Novel," is one which appeals with great force to this beautiful city and it's great university. In connection with this subject I requested the chapter to be read this evening as peculiarly fitting, and for the words of the poet quoted by the president of the club this even- ing that books are for piety, use, wis., dom and delight.
 I should weary you if I attempted to prove the importance of delight over use, and yet it is simple enough that use is means to attain delight, while delight is an end in itself.
 The great and main feature of fiction is not so much to enlarge the world around us as to enlarge ourselves to the world.
 We hear great deal said about the value of utilities, but if we stop to think we shall see that the utilities are sec- ondary.
 What makes the world delightful is our spirituality; the value of things consists in their effect upon the feel ings, the emotions. The moral value of the novel, in story 1 and in fiction, is in its art utility, and art stands above all the other utilities because it does directly what they do indirectly. This accounts for the fact that we pray supreme reverence to the artist rather than to the trades and the artisans.
 The artist fills our hearts with praise and joy, inasmuch as his art is pure and lasting. One of the things which it is most important to appeal to is the imagination, that power which so far l surpasses memory. which enlarges our world by bringing to us the past and the future. Whatever assists our im- | agination is tremendous power in our lives.
 The novel cannot be based upon | falsehood. The thing that should be cannot stand upon the thing that is not. | The novel must be based upon truth and so is tremendous power for truth in the world.
 The novel teaches truth as whole by l eliminating from it the unnecessary and gathering together in 1t those ideas | which the artist wishes to address to the strongest emotions. ! The abundance of fact in novel as- | tonishes me. As a writer of novels l would not dare to introduce into de- scription of New England's woods a specimen of geology or botany not found | there, or to trifie with the phases of the moon, or the rising and setting of the remotest star, for the ordinary inteli- | gent reader rejects all that as unneces- | Sary or untrue.
 As to novels written to teach obliga- tions, I remember to have written that I would like my sweetheart to teach me duties, providing she did not lose her sweetness in so doing, but l will not have her serving notary writs upon | Llle Ilt puolilSSo VI S AiONSA A' NASS W force information upon the reader, but to delight. The author stands related | to the reader as the host to his guest when at his hospitable board. | The host will not do anything but what is polite and pleasant to his guest; no more should the novelist. We should be careful in our reading; l there is much more harm done by bad reading of novels than in the reading ] of bad novels.
 The moral value of the novel appeals especially to the young because it is to the young mind that delight most nat urally appeals.
 One of the saddest spectacles of my experience is to see children reading pa- pers when they ought to be reading sto- ries. They are not yet ready for the utilities.
 | See to it, parents and brothers, and sisters, too, that the little ones are pro- vided with suitable fiction and if you do this I believe Gods smile will be up- on the effort
 MT. Cable will deliver the first in the Dwight hall series of lectures this even 1 ing at 7:30 o'clock. The subject will be "The Newspaper and the Fireside." 1"