The San Angelo press. (San Angelo, Tex.) 1897-1907, 1902-07-30

One can pardon the escapades OF
his heroes on the grounds of theil
ready generosity. With Richard.
sons people virtue is in the mood
and blood, with Fielding's o ten.
der heart beats beneath the Draw.
ler's hide. Richardson showed
refinement, the delicate dream,
the enthusiastic elevation; Field.
ing the inpetuosity of the senses,
the fierce rush of animal desire
with the frank kindness of the
bluff man.
~"
From the days of Richardson
and Fielding to the present we
pass in rapid review. Johnson
with his Rasselas, Sterne and his
Tristram Shandy, Olive Goldsmith
with his charming Vicar of Wake
field, the novel, Jane Austen,
Scott's Waverly, George Eliot's
Mill on the Floss and Adam Bede,
Charles Dickens with heart beat
ing in full sympathy for the poor
and suffering, and Thackery with
his fierce, biting Satire on the
FoIlies of Society. In the hundred
and sixty one years since the days
of the first novel, we have had
pictures of all kinds, fantastic
works of invention, consummate
cleverness, imagination and
dreams, but it has been reserved
for our age and day to produce
a plentiful crop of insipid mani
ties, yelled indecencies, pointless
conversations, purposeless postum
ings, trite aphorisms, weak imi-
tations of Zolaism, wholesale pla-
giarisms, and degenerative ideas,
dress them up in a gaudy drapery
of exceedingly bad English, print
upon bad paper, wire bind in COM
monest style clap, thereupon q
cover in vilest taste, and label
the same the Modern Novel.
*.*
Who is our original genius?
Who with graphic ability is lay
ing hands on a social injustice as
did Kingsley, and dragging the
same to the light of day? Who
is looking at the world with n
normal eye, and describing life as
it is, for the benefit of those
blended with timidity or self-in-
terest or prejudice as did Eliot?
Who like Dickens can write in
scathing words his detestation of
murder, whether national or indi-
vidual, in sport or in war? Who
will write as wrote Thackeray
without feigning an admiration
for popular heroics? Lesage in
his Gil Bias amused the world.
The modern novel amuses only
by the vapidity of its author.
Thackeray from beginning to end
worked to correct, the modern
novelist fawns upon popular
prejudices. Dickens asked us to
believe that humanity, pity and
forgiveness were the finest things
in the world. The modern novel
list leads us to believe that the
grand matrimonial hunt is the
chief end of man. Rabelais
made men laugh boisterously, the
modern novelist lives for the vul-
gar, gum-chewing, rocker-lolling
girl and shallow Drained fellow,
who smokes cigarettes and keeps
his hands white, and his socks
bright.
*.*
1t is narrated that the gentle
upon receiving a new edi-
ition of his decline and Fall of
the Roman Empire" printed in
quarto, being full of the strange
delight which authors feel, rush
ed joyfully with the big volume
round to his patron, the Duke of
Cumberland, eager for praise.
Full of anticipation, he had
imagined the pecan of praise his
grace might sing, and what said
the great one? What do you
want, Gibbon?" Look" said
the author, holding out his prec-
ious volume. "Ah," drawled
the duke, "another damned big
square book, en-"
The anecdote came to my mind
a few days ago, when reading the
book reviews in n well known
periodical; a remedy somewhat
upon the lines laid down by his
grace, the duke, would be far
more apropos than the rubbish