The record-union., 1899-04-28
VALUE OF HISTORIC FICTION

The following paper was written by
the Monday Night Club at Auburn re-
Gently:
The word history is from the Latin
historical, and in short means a writ
ten statement of what is known. The
word novel" is from the French-Latin
nouvelle, or what is new or unusual, III
literature a fictitious tale or narrative.
With these two definitions Will be given
third, and that is: What we are to
understand by the didactic treatment
to instruct or the preceptive in litera-
In literature. It is what is intended
ture
| apprehend that all writers whose
works are worth the reading are to a
certain extent didactic, whether in the
treatment of history, the framework OF
verse, or the structure of fiction. Many
OF them, and it Isl safe to say the best OF
writer's, are unconsciously didactic. A
long drawn agony, such as East
Lynne and the unballasted winglets
and absurdly unnatural characters that
formed good portion of the Sunday
school fiction of thirty years ago, We're
hardly useful in their day and genera
ton, and are absolutely repellant in
our day. We have got beyond looking
for lecture GROOM talks in current fiction,
and naturally expect to satisfy the
cravings of our moral nature in the
sanctities of church, scripture study,
and the rewards Of well doing.
Horace Greeley once stated that the
only good excuse for a new book was
that it contained something new, or
at least presented old facts in a new
form, and that it's production should
benefit the race.
1t has always seemed to me that the
province of the historian is not only
a chronology of events, but a careful
rehearsal of the trend that leads to re-
Suits accompanied with a just moral
estimate of the designs of the parties
to resulting events History is always
made more palatable to the student by
a rehearsal of the underlying princi-
Piles that make resulting events logical.
What l mean, in short, is that cold
and inane chronology is not history any
more than mere artifice of words is
to be dignifled by the name of poem.
Members of the club who have served
as school teachers will most of them
remember book that was foisted upon
ed States" by William Swinton. That
book is the type that l desire to hold
up to execration, and 1 am satisfied
that all teachers that had to do with
this history will respond from the
amen corner From within it's lids
all hints to the moral side of questions
We're excluded, every impulse to patri-
otism was driven out-there was posi-
lively no right nor wrong to the cur
rent of national events, and there was
nothing but cold, passionless dates and
facts. 1t was a veritable inspiration
along the line of Gradgrind and his
facts. Even the story of Pochahontas,
and the later exploits of Francis
Marion and Old Israel Putnam We're
either excluded or relegated to the
''nonpareil'' and unreliable marginal
notes I am happy to say that Mi.
Swinton stood almost alone in his man
ner of handling history, and the school
histories that succeeded his showed
great improy ement.
The fact is, that any system of
theses that excludes the blossom, the
wing and the spirit from the subject
in hand is absolutely puerile and in
sipid. The human race moves on with
rich red blood to its conquests OF
thought as we'll as of sanguinary &C
ton, and tho. pen that tells the facts of
peoples progress must also enter into
its ambitions, it's fancies and its ulti-
mate designs. Facts must be given
wings and petals to become potencieS.
This was the free and fruitful labor
-of our greater historians such as Irving,
Prescott, Motley, the Abbotts, Ban
croft, Headley and Greeley in Amer
lea, and Macaulay, Theirs, Guizot,
Lockhart Hume and Gibbon in Eu-
rope, some of whom shone equally in
satire and fiction.
The primary value of the historic
novel is to be measured in the increas-
ed relish of the student to secure col
lateral and corroborative evidence and
Familiarity with the lines of historic
research that he is pursuing. 1t is
not enough that we read of the rise of
Roman domination; we must read
Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome, -
and the literature, fictional, dramatic
and otherwise to make us familiar with
her classic period 1t is not enough to
become acquainted in a general way
with the early Christian Church of
Alexandria Its seventies must be i'm
pressed by the sad story of 'Hypatia. -
as given by Charles Kingsley. The
age of Nero, the prescription, persecu-
ton and brutal martyrdom of the early
Christians is best illustrated by the
late masterpiece of Sienkiewicz, "Quo
vadis." Lew Wallace has made the
world his debtor by his three historic
masterpieces. Ben Hur" for the Chris
tian era: The Fair Cod for the Cor
tez conquest, and the prince Of In
dia," for the Moslemic period Of con-
quest
For the rich and racy Hibernian lit
erature, no better description of Well
ington in Spain during the Napoleonic
wars can be found than in the, Charles
O'Malley' of Charles Lever.
No historian has been able to present
a better or more faithful portraiture
of Queen Elizabeth than is given by
Scott in "Kenilworth." What matter
If the great magician attempts to con-
done the glaring faults of Dudley and
to charge the death of the beautiful
Amy Robsart to an associate in crimel
This is purely the license of fiction and
poetry.
Go farther back, and the great Richard
Occur de Leon is set in contrast with
John Lakeland, his infamous successor
in "Ivanhoe'' Mary Stuart is shown
with all the weakness of the writer s
love for the beautiful in the Abbott"
The days of Charles Edward, the II.
Pretender are wildly given in Waiver
ley"
The native nobility of Saladin is set
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