The Republican journal., 1896-08-06
Annual Field Day of the N. P.W.C. U.

L hC ohhudl uOHi udy VI tHC ANOh-l al tiSdA
W. c. 7. U. OF Waldo county was held at the
farm of Mr.. and Mrs, Fred A. Griffin of
West Belfast, Wednesday, July 29th. The
Belfast Alliance went out by buckboards,
leaving the city at ! P. NJ. Twenty-seven
delegates were in attendance. At bust
ness meeting the following officers were
elected President. Mrs. F. A. Griffin; Vice
President, Miss E. c. Frye; Secretary, Mrs.
J, F. McKeen; Treasurer Mrs. c. H. Hub
bard; superintendent of departments of
work: Sunday School, Mrs. F. S. Johnson;
Press, Mrs. c. A. Pilsbury; Social Purity
and Rescue Work, Miss Lucy Ryan; Indus
trial Training, Mrs. A. 1. Brown; Benevo-
lent Work, Miss E. G. Frye; Literature,
Mrs. E. P Brown.
Mrs. Annie L. McKeen read an imaginary
conversation between Emerson and Carlisle,
which was highly entertaining. Mrs. E. P.
Brown read the following paper:
When | received word Saturday that YOU
wished me to present paper here to-day
my first thought was that | could not do it,
for the reason that you failed to state what
subject was under consideration. Besides
there was not time to prepare paper of
sufficient merit to be read before the intel
lectua company who We're to meet here to-
day. But on sober second thought | conclud-
ed to try, for it seemed pitful if the intelli-
gent women on these country homesteads
must let the intellectual ladies from this
county and the literary sisters from the
city go home without seeing one green leaf
or inhaing one fragrant flower, in literary
sense, on this field day in the country, and |
thought I would gather a few leaves, if it
was nothing but the wild poppy, which
might put you to sleep perhaps, but still is
new and of this years growth, and betokens
life, however humble. So | have gathered a
few leaves from a new variety classified by
us-the backwoods people-as the Literature
Popples, warranted to put the most vivid
imagination into so profound slumber that
when at last aroused the brain will be a
complete vacuum, "nothlng in it, but the
skull around it.
THE LITERATURE OF THE PAST, PRESENT AND
FUTURE CONSIDERED FROM A PRESENT
POINT OF VIEW.
The literature of the Shakespearean era was
great and intellectual enough to satisfy the
most eXacting; but our civilization cringes
and shrinks at the vulgarity used and the
profanity exposed in almost every play.
To be sure the custom of society then
rendered the exhibition of such coarseness
less glaring than would appear to us in this
more enlightened age. We deplore that so
great and grand writer should exhibit
such glaring defects both in his writings and
morals. 1t seems to us of the present era
that if the latter had been more correct the
former would have been less Objectionable.
With all its coarse features the lovers of
what is noble and inspiring, of that which
| uplifts and edihes mankind, would scarcely
be willing to eXpunge it from their libraries.
The literature of the Elizabethan period
is more cheerful and joyous Many of the
characters introduced seem to have relish
of 70 oil ,Inla oh lIrar
but the end is sad and sorrowful, leaving the
scene piled high with helpless slain without
ray of hope to beguile the tendency to
lose hope. 1t was grand, but it cared so
little to leave the reader with pleasant
emotions that it counteracted in part the
pleasurable emotions imbibed at the first
perusal. Much of the larger number OF the
great productions in literature exhibit life
in its darker phases, permeated as it We're
with profound sadness which leaves
melancholy sense of the pitifuness of hn-
manity. Very many of the incidents bring
the reader nearer to tears than to laughter
and leaves a suit of deeper sables on his
spirits.
The reader who is sensitive to all eXCesses
of gayety should remember that no other
part of literature is 80 perishable as the fun.
Many of the human abilities or instincts that
belonged to man in his earlier stages of de-
velopment are lost and in their places have
come special aptitudes suited to the new
conditions of existence. Writers are gener-
ally most impressed with the fated section
of humanity without delineating clearly the
other phases of life, leaving the reader to in
fer that the dark portrayal represents the
whole of life. The writer needs be keenly
alive to the deficiencies of men, to the con-
fusion and perpleXities of life, as well as
have an exalted conception of human kind,
to give a just and correct delineation of
human life. He must be sensible of the
fol lx Of, on Al xratS Slp hn 20 q rod
is man.
The literature of the present period is free
from nearly all that coarseness which was a
prominent feature in past centuries. The
dark side of humanity is not so exclusively
held up to ones view, but little mirth and
vivacity sometimes appear to gladden. the
heart like stray sunbeam. The writers of
our present literature, such as Hawthorne,
Thackeray and Dickens have a tendency to
trace the hard side of life, as in Little Dorrit,
The Scarlet Letter and Oliver Twist, but
when we take up the Pickwick Papers we
see at once that Dickens at least understood
both sides of human life, that the sad side
was not the whole of life nor yet the bright
side supreme, but the proper ninghng of the
two forces made perfect portrayal of
human life as it really is.
Viewing the Improvement in our current
literature as civilization advances, may we
not learn to hope that the literature of the
future may copy more from nature and have
a cheerful budding springtime an animated
Towering summer season, and Joyous hap
py autumn, and not have life misrepresented
as one eternal round of winters coldness and
gloom but that the cold, brown, dry earth,
each year being newly clothed with velvety
green heritage, resurrected by the forces of
nature, should beautify human life and teach
humanity to copy after the purling brook,
which when released from it's icy fetters goes
singing and rippling on its way to the ocean,
or the tiny leaf or flower just awakened by
the sun morning kiss opens and expands,
filled with thanksgiving for the dewdrop
and sunlight and convey to the minds of our
future writer's the propriety OF portraylng
life with sunshine, mirth and joyousness in
it. The dark days of sickness and gradual
wasting away come soon enough without an
ticipating their approach.
| feel tonight like the old weaver while
composing his hymn, The Web of Life, who
said:
Long have | sat in the and gloom
Weaving the wonderful web of life
| know not how it will bend the best,
For the Masters eve Is very clear,
And the Master also is very just,
He knows have done the best could.
That the weayerS hand was only dust,
The yarn that she worked with not all good.
So l sit tonight in the waning light
And my life sinks low with the setting sun,
My weary hands and my failing sight
Tell me the web of my life is done.
Give me, o Master, good and true,
My wage-and some better work to do.
After the literary exercises bOuntlful
picnic supper was partaken of, Mrs. Griffin