The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903, 1902-01-25
Two Novels

operate boots and Odds watts are going
out. Everything wears out, but this
fashion has lasted over time The Meis-
terschaft system fiourished for a time
as the newly discovered royal path to
the attainment of foreign languages.
The vogue of the historical novel is
partly due to the desire for culture
coupled with an unwillingness to apply
ones mind to knowledge. Fair ladies
and amiable gentlemen with ideals of
polish still unattained. think that in
the Waverly novels they will learn all
about the history of England without
having to suffer the drudgery of com
hitting genealogical tables, and if they
read the novels whose scenes are laid
i'm the American revolutionary or pre-
revolutionary period they fancy il will
have the same effect as a university
course in American history. And for
those who have a gift of concealing
what they do not know and displaying
every shred of what they do know per-
haps the diluted and conventionaliZed
history found i'm the historical romance
is quite strong enough. To have one
target and hit it in the center is better
and much less wearisome to the spec
tator who is watching the marksman
than to fire with a scattering load in
the general direction of several targets
them.
There are novelists who elect to mix
history with a love story who would
make excellent historians, so painstak-
ing, patient, fairminded and clear
sighted are they. On the other hand
there are historians like Lord Mac
cauley who would have made in his
day-which was a day of fine writing
and of Addisonian periods-a distin-
guished novelist. Lord Macauley had
the novelist's virtue and the historians
fault of getting interested in the men
and women whose biographies and
public and private careers he made il
his business to investigate. He made
heroes, heroines and villains of his
kings, queens and commoners. In fact
Lord Macauley is the author of the best
historical novels ever written. But to
the end of time and catalogs they will
continue to occupy the historical alcove
of the library.
The unpretentions but interesting
stories issued by Harper and Brothers,
called the American Novel series, are
in, h.a nf rafl a
consideration of the unmiXed heart-in-
terest. II the scene be laid in a time
that is gone it is a matter of atmos-
phere and not of historical detail. Men
and women long past the age when the
love motif, except retrospectively and
as a matter of keeping VOWS made in
youth, is of any personal Importance
or influence, still like to read love
stories, prefer them indeed to detective
tales and Monte Cristo dramas of the
impossible The most commonplace,
bandy-legged, middle-aged party is 10
himself, in the isolated desert where
everyone dwells, forever a hero of TO
nance and the pivotal center of a
thrilling love story. The more insignifi-
cant the man actually is, the more
time he has to work out the important
part he plays in the melodrama that no
one but himself knows anything about.
Hence the popularity of the love story
though all the possible combinations
have long ago been exhausted.
When Love is Young" is a story of
a young man who is convinced that he
was born to achieve great things in
literature. He falls in love as boy
and falls out and in again with the