The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1901-11-02
HIGHER ASPIRATIONS.

To the average mortal there is one
resource books. The better gifted
have other means Of recreation, they
may study zoology, Phrenology and all
the ologies, but even these gifted ones
have to come to books, as the happy
pastime of their lives. Napoleon read
the romances of his day when he was
being driven to battle command Alex
ander read his Homer, the romance and
realism of his day, on the eve of VIM
ming the battle of the Granicus. War
rem Hastings was reading the account
of DR.. Johnsons visit to the Hebrides,
when all Calcutta was bowling under
his palace windows, because he insisted
upon hanging Nuncomar Yes, books
are the alleviations of modern, as well
as of ancient life.
But there are books and books. The
specialists and the scientists delight in
abstruse literature which is caviare to
the general. These books, pamphlets
and articles are of the greatest use to
the world, but they do not touch the
multitude. The poets touch a wider
field. They make the heart strings
Vibrate, which but for their gentle
voice would remain forever mute. The
world hardly now recognizes the power
of the true poet, because it is so easy
10 become a poetaster. Rhyme and
rhythm are not necessarily poetry and
Walt Whitman taught the world the
difference in our age as Ennius had
4 I.gT
The novelist has had a very fair field
in popular favor, and no one who is a
student of literature would say a word
in his dispraise The novelist has not
only told his tale, which he began IN
the middle ages in Italy, but he has
made his tale a moral force. We can
not do without our novelists whatever
nationality we may belong to. Indeed
the great novelist is of no nationality,
he is of all nationalities. Richter was
read in English speaking countries with
as much eagerness as Dickens in many
European tongues. Ebers as an histo-
rical novelist was translated into Eng
lish but Scott had been made a friend
of Europe long before Ebers began to
write. Tolstoi, of Russia, is not of his
own people, he is a worlds man, as
Zola is, and the names come rafting
down at the end of ones pencil till a
halt must be called. Sufficient ground
for the argument has been laid out.
But heart stirring as books may be,
which deal with the passions, such as
historians, poets and novelists write,
and greatly as they elevate US, there are
people who can write books which touch
the gentler human nature, which bring
out it's sweetness, as the morning air
calls forth the fragrance Of wall flowers
that have gathered around some old
ruin, and yet do not arouse the siren
nous energy which other literature calls
for, while it avoids the sensuOus deca-
dence of a Swinburn, a La Gallienne, OF
worse still a Wilde,
The class of books to which the Star
refers were commenced centuries ago
by Theocritus, and some of the purest
and most beautiful Of country idylls are
to be found in his works, There have
been hosts of imitators. To enumerate
would be tiresome. but Virgil's Georges
and Eclogues showed how the taste OF
his day loved the country atmosphere
and Horace bows his head to Virgil in
one of his 'odes, yet Horace is more of
a gentleman of the twentieth century