The record-union., 1897-05-22
BESELENA'S PRATTLE.

Especial Correspondence of Record d-Union)
PORTLAND (Or), May 10, 1897
That the boys and girls of to-day are
not insufferable little prigs, is certainly
not due to the literature written for
their benefit; in nearly every case by
men and women who have no more idea
of the style of reading matter that will
please children, than they have of what
style Of reading matter is pleasing to
the king of the cannibal islands.
The healthy growing boys and girls
of to-day instead of being given books
of adventure that would delight their
soul are fed upon Sunday school liter
ature that tells all about goody goody
little children who are agraid of being
naughty because they live in whole
some fear of his satnic majesty. In
the end these sanctimonous little prigs
usually have the good taste to die,
killed no doubt, by an excess of their
own Righteousness. never. grieve
over their untimely end. If ! had one
of those holy kidlets around me I'd
be tempted to stick it with hat pin
to see if it were made of really blood
like other folks, or only just sawdust.
AS rule children don't reason about
things; they are guided mostly by in
stinct. When they are old enough to
distinguish right from wrong they are
good because they have wholesome
fear of being found out and punished
when they do anything amiss. The
power of reasoning and of carefully
weighing the consequences is something
that few grown people have in a state
of perfection; therefore l say it is all
nonsense for the Sunday-school books
to maintain that the small boy did not
steal because he was afraid of everlast-
ing damnation. The average small
boy is not the least bit afraid of ever
lasting damnation if he wanted to steal,
the question of punishment at some re-
mote period would not deter him; he
would steal anyway. and like great
many other people trust to luck not to
be found out. Instinct, as 1 have said,
is the motive power which guides chill
dren until their reasoning powers slow
ly develop with the growth OF their
bodies Just why the average mother
will keep a book of adventure away
from her son has always been more or
less of mystery to me. Personally I
have never found this style of literature
to be harmful: its only the blood and
thunder clap-trap that excites the i'm
agination, and if mothers fondly think
that their innocent little darlings don't
indulge in this kind of literature on the
sly then they are very much mistaken
It's only the unattainable that whets
ones appetite.
Even such thrilling tales as wild
Bill the Untamed Scout of the Plains
isn't going to effect a nromal boy, while
it may an abnormal boy who isn't
properly balanced mentally and who
has a strain of wild blood in him some
where. Ii is blood that will tell every
time, and a small boy who shows an
inclination to go TO the bow vows at an
appalliDgly early age will go to them
sooner or later, in spite of all parental
barriers
These are the days when one Just
wants to lounge in a hammock with a
cool, loose dress on, a fan and plenty
of lemonade at hand. not forgetting a
light novel. l find that it doesn't pay
to go in for heavy reading during the
hot weather Ones reading should. I
believe, be regulated to suit the sea-
)
or ones diet. But in these latter davs
of reasoning and analysis its hard to
get really good novel. Analysis and
logic are very good in their places but
/ do not recommend either one of them
for the dog days. In the analytical
novel; the heroine, as soon as she finds
out that she is in love, sets to work
to analyze the feeling. Now any one
who knows anything at all about love
knows that it simply can't be analysed:
its too vague, to intangible by far No
girl in her right senses, outside of one
of the impossible books of which I
speak would think of doing such
thing. The man of the story doesn't
analyZe, men are not given to such
things even in up-to-date books; it
wouldn't do to turn a searchlight OF
mans innermost thoughts, and men
don't do it.
The girl heroine in the modern novel
has unattainable longings She scorns
the earth world in which she finds her
self. Her thoughts soar among the
clouds. After while she meets a man
who pleases her, but her analytical
spirit gets the better of her and she
sets to work to study him coolly, crit
ically. dispassionately No man can
come out of such an ordeal unscathed
She makes the discovery that he is not
in sympathy with her highest aspira-
tions; true the aspirations may be in
tangible, but then the aspirat tions of
modern heroines usually are intangi-
be Then she and the unsympathetic
man have a last meeting at the end of
1t ioIr
the wide, wide world alone. The he
roine after wandering half the night in
the bleak, desolate hills returns to her
home in the chill. gray of the early
morn and writes full and complete
account of the affair in her diary. after
which she feels infinitely better. The
man dies Of consumption or else is
killed in a railroad wreck
You may like these vague. intangible
creatures, my friends, but 1 frankly
confess 1 do not: in the language of
the day, they make me defadfully tired
I like to be in touch with my heroine to
feel that she is woman just like my
self, not mythical, shadowy creature
evolved from the distorted brain of an
overwrought, overworked imagination.
always want these impossible heroines
to die, too. SO that the author will not
inf1ict her upon us again in the shape
of sequel. I don't like sequels un-
less they are about pleasant, cheerful
things.
Wher / was little girl I used to de-
YOUR Dickens by the hour. He was
my ideal writer, as he is now, from the
time l was able to understand and ap-
preciate books. The secret of Dickens
universal popularity lies in the fact