Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1901-11-09

A few years ago woman named Wood
living In Toronto was married to Dr..
Barnhardt Of the same place. Not very
long afterward DR.. Barnhardt slipped
over to Detroit, remained there long
enough to procure legal residence IN
der the laws Of Michigan and then pro-
cured a divorce from his Toronto wire.
Probably she was in collision with
him in these proceedings. But that
question was not raised at any suose-
quent time. After the divorce she mar
ried Pendrill of Toronto. Except the
divorce episode at Detroit 1t was To-
ronto affair from first to last. rms
marriage proved unsatisfactory to the
husband, but he could find no cause
for divorce. He therefore caused his
wife to be prosecuted criminally for
bigamy in marrying him while she had
not legal divorce from DR.. Barnhardt,
her former husband. In this suit the
decision in the case Of Earl Russell,
tried in the English House Of Lords,
was followed. It was decided that an
American divorce Is not valid in any
part of the British empire. The case
was appealed and may go to the high
est British courts. But 1t has caused
much anxiety In all theeborder cities,
where many divorced people under
American laws have remarked and are
residents. The enforcement Of the de-
cision would unmarry in every case
American divorced people If they had
remarked and should visit England on
| tour Of foreign travel.
Thomas Nelson Page, whose opinion
| in a matter Of literature commands re-
| spect, seems in recent interview to
feel that things literary are at present
in bad way. people no longer ask"
| said Mr.. Page, IF a book is work Of
| art, but If 1t Is one Of the half dozen
best selling books Of the year." This
tendency, Of course, results in the neg
| lect Of the valuable and the perma-
nent, and in the cultivation Of the
| ephemeral, which Is a courteous equiv
alent Of trashy. Mr.. Page no doubt has
substantial reasons for the opinion he
expressed. But it is only natural, IN
the opinion Of the Chicago Tribune,
| that a man who IS In the midst Of the
| fight should be somewhat disturbed by
| the unexpected strength Of the enemy
| and should not at first be aware that
perhaps the foes he Is confronting have
| always existed and seem new and
strange only because they are now In a
somewhat different guise. The COM
plant about the trashy has been the
| diversion Of the critics of all ages. Mr..
| Kipling assures us in one place that
| the cave men felt that the days Of the
true romance had passed away, and in
| another that the primitive poet who
wrote tribal lays was met with the re-
monstrance that "hIs work was pretty,
but was it Art?" One can read in the
| publishers preface to the first edition
of Millions lyrical poems that II the
| publisher had wished to make money
| he would have published something
else, "for that this age hath no just
taste and would prefer other things"
In later generation Pope has immor
| talized the "maudltn poetesses" and
"rhyming peers who ragged and re-
cited' till he thought that "all Bed
lam or Parnassus had broke loose"
And to come down to modern times, IL
any one will take the trouble to resur-
rect the trash Of 1850, now happily
| buried, he will have more tolerance for
the trash of to-day. There Is still an
other excuse for the present age how
ever, besides that to be found in the
fact that it is little, If at all, worse
| than it's predecessor. The standard Of
taste is lowered by the tremendous in
crease in the number of readers. Thou
sands Of men and women have as yet
no test for a book except its popu-
larity. After they have read for some
time they will begin to discriminate
for themselves, but at present they go
with the tide. The noble army of novel
readers Is recruited largely from this
class Of persons. But is the fact that
large proportion, say even the larger
part, of the reading public is now occu-
pied with worthless novels to be taken
| as a proof that there Is not still "f1t
audience, though few" which listens
| to the words of the best writer's both Of
the past and Of the present? And Is
there any way of showing that that
audience Is smaller now than before?
On the contrary, may it not be larger?
The sale Of classic" authors continues
steadily. Shakespeare comes out in new