Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1895-04-12
essry County 9ral1.
Island Pond. VI, April IL.
Mhlther sre ID DrIItlnse

sationllis n. Th.re seems to be
an increasing tendency to III
crease and follow these currents
wherever they acquire sufficient
volume and exhibit marked direc-
tons enough TO attract popular
attention. People don't seem to
stop nowadays To investigate or
to examine anything that seems
to be on the go. Real ideas are
dropped in the wild chase for the
imaginative and sensational. \
discovery that they are duped
does not seem to deter them from
any new chase that offers. Trilby
is probably the most renowned
work at present. If it had not
met with an accident 1t would
have been a story of sickly senti-
mentaliSm all about a pretty
foot and a crazy girl without
half the merit and with a little
more notoriety than was pos
sessed by some story like the
"Trappcrs of Umbagog." But
when everybody else concluded
that everybody else was raining
after it the multitude joined III
the wild chase. MI kinds of les
sons of humanity and noble SEN
t.ments that imagination could
invent were drawn from it, and
now it takes the lead as q mas
ter piece in literature. Nobody
has stopped to see whether 1t
contains any real substantial
philosophy, literary taste or
whether in any direction it is a
useful educator. Oscar Wilde
comes to this country and sud
denly becomes the fin de steele Of
the times. Nobody ever enquired
about his merits; nobody stop
PED to look at the quality of his
manners; nobody suggested in
what way he was useful; but all
Joined in blind alteration of the
presumptuous fraud who it turns
cut bore the same relation to
society that any ether fop did.
Now that it has turned out that
the crowd has been running after
one of the vilest, cheapest and
most contemplate sensational
lists nobody seems to stop and
examine and profit by the lesson
it ought to teach, but to beready
to start for any new sensation
only hesitating to see whether il
will 90 as q sensation. MANY
men and projects are followed
and cheered by those who know
nothing concerning them, anC
persons follow them simply be
cause others do. All this is done
at the expense of real substan
tial considerations. The whole
American people recently Went
off in one of these tangents anC
went off in a wild sensation
which was vainly imagined
would bring an utopia. Anc
now that the sensation has sub
sided and it is seen where tn,
business and other interests 0
the country are the people cal
hardly realize why and how the,
were led into such an immens,
steeplechase. The most renown
ed and meritcriOus authors il
literature are almost entirely iii
noticed except by few scholar
and philosophers who remain
unmoved by the unhealthy excite
ment OF the times. The multi
tude seem to be waiting ant
watching to see what is comm!
next. a wild, uneasy, fretful, in
considerate disposition seems t,
have been developed by tn
hurrying sensations which in
stead of bringing steady pros
perity and means of happines
and development have produce,
disquietude and unhappiness
The literature of the day, igno1
ing all thoughtful, moral or edit
cational considerations, all tn
simple taste so becoming in mer
tai pursuits, exercises a certai
kind of genius through which an
between the lines of the write
may be found food for the pa'
sions and the baser instinct,
Even the works Of the grand oil
masters in law, literature or SC
ence written by men who du
down and founded them on tt
he'd rocks Of t1aOrv o,,5 cc;e,,