Manchester Democrat. [volume] (Manchester, Iowa) 1875-1930, 1901-11-13

Thomas Nelson Page, whose opinion
IN matter of literature commands re-
spect, seems in recent interview to
feel that things literary are at present
In a bad way. people no longer ask, y
said Mr.. Page, eff book is work Of
art, but If it 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 1t is only natural, III
the opinion Of the Chicago Tribune,
that 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
diyersionNof 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 "hls work was pretty,
but was it Art?" One can read in the
publishers preface to the first edition
of Millions lyrical poems that il 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 'maudlin 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, II
any one Will take the trouble to resur
rect the trash of 1850, now happily
buried, he will have more tolerance fol
the trash Of to-day. There is still an
other excuse for the present age, how
ever. besides that to be found in til,
fact that 1t is little, If at all, worse
than Its 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 We
no test for a book except its popu
larity. After they have read for som,
time they will begin to discriminat,
for themselves, but at present they e,
with the tide. The noble army of move
readers is recruited largely from thi
class of persons. But is the fact that
large proportion, say even the large
part, of the reading public is now occ,l
pied with worthless novels to be takel
as a proof that there is not still a IF
audience, though few" which listen
to the words of the best writer's both O
the past and Of the present? And Ii
there any way of showing that tina
audience Is smaller now than before
On the contrary, may it not be larger
The sale Of classic" authors continue
steadily. Shakespeare comes out in new
editions every year. Even men Xix,
Sir Thomas Browne, Gray and Pater
who can hardly expect an overwhelm
| Ing popularity, are not without thel
large body of admirers. Might it no
be said, then, that although perhap.
the whole lump of readers is large
now in proportion to the leaven of the
judicious than ever before. the leave1
still exists. and that in time it will nc
complish the work which is prophesiet
for it in the scriptures?