Democratic Northwest and Henry County news. [volume] (Napoleon, O. [Ohio]) 1894-1905, 1895-04-25
ENGLISH AND FRENCH NOVELS.
The Former Rum to Adventure, the Latte
tn Character and Passion.

The Former Rum to Adventure, the Latter
to Character and Passion.
It Is curious and interesting to note
that the English and French take opposite
sides in novels, the English preferring
now, as always, the romance or, rather
its modern form, the novel of adventure,
while the French take the keenest pleasure
In the analysis of characters or passions
playing within the franc of every day life.
Before attempting to decide which is the
better of these two productions 1t may be
well to try and explain how the English
came to choose the romantic and the
French the realistic method The expla-
nation seems to lie on the surface, to be
seen by any one who considers the circum-
stances of the two peoples.
The English is a colonizing race that
seeks adventures and finds them in every
quarter of the globe. If Englishmen do
not push across painless forests to conquer
dragons and deliver fair maidens or plunge
into sunless sea caves to war with mon
sters more terrible than any to be found
In upper air, 1t is simply true to say that
ths asagers have only assumed new
fosiSs. Fighting fevers and famine in In.
platus nf Manitoba, seeking gold amid
the rainstorms of Mashonaland or on
the sunbaked waterless wastes of West
Australia, the Briton's life Is apt to be
one of great vicissitudes, filled with events
as strange as those which, In the telling,
charmed Desdemona. 1t Is not to be won
dered at that the race that most loves ad-
ventures and perils and feels more keenly
than others the fascination of the un-
known should prefer works of art that rem
der its peculiar passion. The novel of ad-
venture is still, as it has always been, the
chief type of English creative work in
prose.
The French idea Of prose fiction ia
wholly, different, corresponding closely,
as 1t does, with French life and French
character. The Frenchman Is neither nd
venturous nor romantic, but gifted with
the Latin reasonableness and clearness OF
| view, an art lover from his birth, with a
leaning toward refined sensuality. These
| qualities and many other excellent differ
ences will be readily conceded to him by
every student of art OF literature For the
model of his prose fiction, for the master
pieces embodying his characteristics, as
l
teristics of Englishmen, we must not go
to "Gil Bias" with Its Spanish intrigues,
but to "Manon Lescaut." Every one knows
the story of tho Chevalier des Grieux and
his passionate love for Manon. Every one
| knows, too, how Manon's lightness and
| gayety tortured and fascinated her lover;
how the chevalier's parents made common
cause with tho authorities Of Paris to sep
| arate the devoted pair and how they
failed. No one who has ever read 1t car
have forgotten the story Of Manon's death
In that American desert and Of the cheva
lier's inconsolable grief.
This great work resembles Robinson
Crusoe' in nothing save the fidelity to lift
of Its character drawing. Robinson Cru
soc Is finer study of an individual, fal
more intimate, soul revealing and elabo
rate than tho somewhat careless, sketchJ
portrait of Dos Grieux. But Manon can bt
classed perhaps oven higher than Robin
son Crusoe as a portrait taken from life
The varying fortunes, too, of the French
lovers are conditioned by their character
and by the circumstances Of the time, ant
are not to be compared in strangeness ant
physical excitement with the wholly acci
dental adventures which called for Cru
soe's indomitable energy. Both books arr
acknowledged masterpieces, and the charm
of one for mature readers Is certainly no
surpassed by the fascination which TIN
: other exercises over the imagination o
boyhood. Saturday Review.
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