The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-11-07

Mrs Stowe did some good work in that line
for the New England field, and Mrs. Jane
G. Austin is doing similar service. Maud
Wilder Goodwin is the author of some pref
ty romances of colonial Virginia which
present the life of that time wildly; DIR.
Weir Mitchell has just offered notable
contribution to the fiction of the revolution,
and Mrs. Catherwood has recognized the
picturesque possibilities of the French
period of domination in our western his
tory and has done an inestimable service
by reScuing it from oblivion and placing it
in literary setting that will be lasting.
Mr.. Choate says that the use, one use of
such romances as SCOTS is to supply
deficiencies of history:
Their leading object, perhaps may be to
tell an interesting story with some en-
bellIShments of poetry and eloQuence and
me writing and mighty dialogue. But the
plan on which they are composed requires
that they should Intervene into their main
design near, distinct and accurate, but
magnihed and ornamental view OF the
times, people and country to which that
story goes back. They give you the natural
scenery of that country in a succession of
landscapes fresh and splendid as any in the
whole compass of literature. yet topo-
graphlcally accurate as you viii find in any
geography or book of travels. They cause
crowded but exact and express image OF
the age and society OF which they treat to
pass before you as you see MOSCOW or
Jerusalem or Mexico in a shOWman'S box.
They introduce living men and women Of
every class and calling in society, and make
them talk and act in character You see
their dress, their armor and their weapons
of war. You sit at their tables, you sleep
under their roof-tree, you fish, hunt and
fowl with Them You follow them to their
employment in field, forest and workshop,
you travel their roads, cross their rivers,
them
at the feast, and hear their war cry in bat
tie and the coronach which announces and
lamentS their fall. Time and space are thus
annihilated by the power OF genius. In
stead of reading about past age you live
in it.
One reason, doubtless why more of this
class of fiction is not written is that it re-
quires so much preliminary study. The in
tending author must delve into the history
of the period until he is intimately
quainted with events and with the people
and their ways, and is saturated with the
spirit of the time. Unless these dead and
gone pioneers are alive to him they will
only move as puppets in his pages An
other reason for the neglect is, perhaps.
that American history does not have the
perspective that suggests romance and
tempts to closer exploration. Scott himself
went back to the crusades for his most
effective material. Compared to that out
look the American revolution is near; the
civil war is of yesterday and too close to
get the unprecedented view of one who would
weave it into romance. Great possibilities
exist, however, for the writer with a gift
for story telling who shall give his atten-
ton to any period of American history. In
Vulnerable stories are there and must be
told for themselves, but the history they in
corporate must be accurate. Neither need
the ambitious writer go far from home to
seek his material. Indiana, as we'll New
England, offers ample opportunity for the
historical novel, and some day doubtless it's
possibilities will be recognized and its
pioneer life, so rapidly becoming matter of
verbal tradition, will be revived and set
forth in fiction to the enlightenment and
delectatOn of a later generation.