The record-union., 1899-04-28

ly than in "Rienzi,' and that grand re-
peopling of the buried city in his Last
Days of Pompeii?"
Victor Hugo in his Les Miserables, .
by epigrams. phillipics, philosophical
deductions, imagery of the highest type,
word painting that vies with Raphael
canvas and Michael Angeles master
pieces hurls his thunderbolts against the
Bourbon customs and laws and they
crumble with the renewed France. And
in 1t ALL set in the highest jewels OF
his imaginative genius stands the his
torlc Waterloo / ask you all, If you
ever from any northumberland history ever
caught glimpse of the battle till this
great master limned it with his match
less pen. The great author as if to
touch this picture and the great Ma
poleon with his anticlimax afterward
described the Little Napoleon" the
Louis Bonaparte of our easy memory,
in his History of a Crime"
Other books come up, and other auth
ors whose fiction may be termed epochal
and semi-hstorical, because of the
trenchent didactics that are impressed
by them. Dickens hurled his Nicholas
Nickleby' at the Yorkshire school
master and suppressed a well recog-
nlzed type Of the age. He threw his
Bleak House" against the Chancery
Court of England and literally met
amorphosed it. He gave us the an
gelic and altogether. sweet Little
Dollit," and struck the debtors
prisons of England a blow that literally
suppressed an effort to re-establish
them- He held up the Gordon outbreak
in all its naked ugliness in "Barnaby
Ridge" and did much to check religious
Intolerance by the creation.
Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, in her
Agnes of Sorrento" and George Eliot,
in her 'Romola,'' throw all the sweet
ness and flower of poetry and fiction
around the life of the great Italian re-
former, Savonarola. Cervantes, with
his brilliant wit, cleaved the jointure of
Spanish armor and tabled knighthood
by the object lesson of poor old Don
Quixote and his faithful squire, Sancho
Panza
Benjamin Disraeli gave us the best
modern picture of English society and
political intrigue in his "Endymion.
Judge Tourgee gave US some of the
period in his Fools Errand'' and
Bricks Without Straw
Our modern Black gives US one OF
the best pictures of the domestic life of
the great William Shakespeare in his
portrayal of his supposed daughter,
Judith Shakespeare
Then there are works that are semi
historical in being autobiograp hical in
character, the authors in each case be-
ing in the general sense historical
characters. Dickens we'll known par
TALLY to his first great creation, 'Da-
vid COpperfield," because subsequently
explained in the fact that David was
closest to himself; that Micawber was
a near portrait of his father, and that
the passage of Dora from his life, and
the natural uniting of David and Ag-
mes in the later pages was merely a
glimpse into a domestic felicity, which
though not fact, was at least happy
and beautiful contamination.
George Eliot came closest to herself
in the sweet Christian graces of the
Dinah of her adam Bede'' There was
visible deterioration of her spiritual
intuitions in the later creations of her
more crystallized intellect Her heart
and brain worked simultaneously in the
early books. In the later ones her in
tellect was less mellow and genial, and
visibly less fruitful
l could extend these pictures beyond
limit, but what are the conclusions
drawn? To my mind, they are, first
of all: That the best of fiction is not
an overdrawn fiction, but one that
keeps step with common and natural
environments. Second, that the most
fruitful of fiction writer's take their
background and base from fact either
historic or domestic. Third, that they
recognize a purpose considerably above
the |. s. d. of England, or the dollar
mark of America, and that they find
their best compensation in the facts of
satisfactory creations. Fourth, that
they find in different salient points Of
history the best groundwork for those
creation. Fifth, that from these facts
and deductions we get a strong affirma-
ton of the priceless value of historic
fiction.