The age-herald., 1900-05-25
HARSH VIEW OF NEW
 COLONIAL ROMANCES

The New York Press speaks with some scorn of Janice Meredith" "Richard Car vel' and ITO Have and To Hold" and likens the historical cut-and-sash romance to the circus:
 "One of them is dime novel, which, if a boy were caught reading in the paper cover form sold at a nickel, would earn for him a thrashing from his anxious parent. Another is made up of whole blocks of chapters from Thackerays Henry Es- mond and The Virginians, and, unfor- tunately, for the art of writing, the blocks have been chopped into shapeless and un- beautiful chunks The other is patchwork of primary history, illuminated with the flashing of tin swords.
 "Yet each one of these books touches hu- man interest. They are to the book reader what the circus is to the boy. Some of us may know of precocious and abnormal youth of 12 years who would rather prac- tice his music lesson than go to a circus, but all the other boys in the town want the circus, and they want it sufficiently if they cannot get it in any other way, to crawl under the tent. That is why, and probably the only reason why, the books complained of sell enormously. The human nature to which they appeal is universal. lney dwell upon the primal emotions, feelings and passions. They scratch to the quick of life They are poor. True. But the boy will go to a poor circus rather than to the most beautiful music lesson. Give him better circus and he will be all the happier but d circus of any quality is better than no circus.
 Doubtless we shall be accused of taking low viewpoint when we make the com parison. We don't think we do We con- fess that we find more fault with a good many of the books which the professional critics approve than we do with the poor 'Carvels' and Janice Merediths.' The par ticular charge to be laid against most of the kind which preceded the present run of historical romance is that however fine the artistic finish of good many of them they carried nothing to universal humanity They developed chiefly the manifestations of the personal beliefs, fads, yes, manias, of the writers. And such exposition can appealIon to those who possess the same manias are afflicted with the same dis eases as form the motive of that kind of fiction. The people of the world in general are not maniacal and they are not diseased
 Richard Carvel, Janice Meredith and the others like them simply are following with feeble footsteps the way of a Thack- eray-the way of universal humanity. As the boy goes to the circus, so the public reads these cheap limitations of noble mas ters, for fun. Nothing more. There is no harm in that The pedantic bookman takes himself too seriously, and his views of humanity are gloomy to no purpose or ad- vantage to any one. Why care whether TO Have and To Hold sells 200,0 or 2G0- 100000 volumes? The public goes to that circus this time; next time to some other The tents come down and move off, and the boys go back to the school house which stands on it's founda tions. The circus books are all well enough for couple of hours amusement once in a while. Don't find fault with them or those who have their fun It is peevish. It is bootless. Thack- cray, the school house, stays"