The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1900-06-03
The Excessive Anxiety OF Mr.. Wicks

Mr.. Yardley F. wicks wrote TO the
New York Times the other day pro-
test against the deteriorating influence
of recent novels. Mr.. Wicks has read.
he says. with much uneasiness the
many new sentimental novels, such as
ITO Have and to Hold Janice Mere
dith," "Richard Carvel." and the like.
and from these tales he has learned
that 1--WE are at present In a slough of
unhealthy sentimentality." When he
reads the newspapers, he gets the same
unfortunate idea Accounts of boy
burglars, youthful murderers and sui
cides not unnaturally bring horror to
his soul, and with a painful lack OF
logic he attributes all these melancholy
phenomena to the "sentimentality" cf
the current school OF historical romance
and the false ideas as to right and
wrong and responsibility" with which Il
furnishes the growing mind.
Now the current school Of historical
romance has enough legitimate burdens
to bear without being loaded down with
the precocious misdeeds of the crimi.
nal classes of society. Is 1t not enough
that It is frequently dull. fatuous and
inaccurate. without having the sin of
corrupting youth laid to It's charge? If
the much-worried gentleman had
or m tnL al 40 he
would have seen that the folk who buy
current fiction by the hundreds OF thou
sands of copies are not the folk whose
children are untimely criminal. AS for
the sentimentality of the young, that
cannot be denied; but 1t is today wha.
1t was yesterday. and IL Heaven indeed
watches over the prayers OF earth. to-
morrow It will be no less. Like hunger
and thirst and greed of gold, the ideal
ism of youth Is one Of the constant
forces of society. The earth might as
we'll stop turning on Its axis at once II
from sixteen to twenty-five. or beyond.
life did not look to the young infinitely
itfhri anu iittfG diiufinE, anu nuiiidI
nature infinitely finer and fuller of pos
sibilties than the man of fifty believes
them to be. If this idealism spills over
into sentimentality. at least the process
is natural one.
1t was George Meredith who said Of
romance 1.-The young who avoid that
MAJ
the cost OF prlncely crown" This
! much is certain: whereas the man
OF fifty can do nothing creative with his
disillusions and his materialIsm unless
making money can be called a creative
task. the young person of twenty about
whom Mr.. Yardley f. Wicks, the Times
correspondent. is so unduly disturbed
IL nothing II he is not the steering-gear
OF progress. This world is his world
| by virtue of the fact that his enthusi-
| asms blaze the track over which In the
fullness Of time the wheels OF things
shall run heavily. He usually has an
| over-charge of enthusiasms. Just as the
May pfCHdTi mas an excess OF blOSSOulS.
but the one is no more an occasion for
anxiety than the other. except to GER
tain fussy persons weighed down by n
| belated sense Of responsibility for the
universe and anxious to find in current
| fiction sufficient explanation for the
! fixed vibrations of human nature.
| Our esteemed contemporary the Louis
! vile Courier Journal alludes on its edi-
| torial page TO the "enormity OF the task
! OF patrolling Louisville" when II Is
crowded. "Enormlty'' strikes US as a
highly appropriate term TO apply TO al
most any official action in Kentucky
!
! According to a New York newspaper.
Mr.. sulEer says he feels very insignia
/ cant when he stands on the seashora
and compares himself with the Vastly
deep. 4 soda-fountaln Is the proper
thing Tor Mr.. Sulzer 10 stand beside
when h. wishes TO sire himself up.