Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1902-09-14
viii the Novel Disappear.

The September number or Inc NOrln
American Review which is just out,
leads off with a symposium on the ques-
ton 'sWill the Novel Disappear? by a
distinguished cuintette of American au-
thors. The discussion has been precipi-
tated by NJ Jules Verne's recent remarks
in the London Daily Mail to the effect
that in fifty or hundred years from
now novels or romances will have en-
trely disappeared, and will be supplanted
by the daily newspaper. On this point
that the race will in future read news
papers instead of novels, and will file the
former as its best records for posterity-
Mr.. James Lane Allen retorts:
newspapers are not issued as docu-
ments for posterity. One might as well
say that the nastodon lived in order that
it's bones could be filed in a museum as
document for the zoologist. Neither
newspapers nor novels are written for
poster;ty. They may thus come into
competition when they are dead, but SO
long as they are alive they no more in
terfere with each other than eating and
drinking. 1t would be as reasonable to de-
clare that the sounds which constitute
noise will hereafter supplant the sounds
which constitute music"
Mr.. w. D. Howells has an equally
buoyant faith in the future of the novel.
end:
'"The cave-dweller, sitting at his cavern
door in the cool OF the evening, AMI alb
sently picking out the simple chords Of
stone-age music on the sinews stretched
upon the thigh-bone of the brother he had
eaten, listened with the same rapture
to the tarradiddles Of some gifted neigh
Dor as the twentieth century maiden feels
in hanging over the page of the largest
selling book of the actual summer; and
when time is getting ready to be no more
the Last Man shall say to the Next to the
Last, Now that we are not likely to Be
interrupted here is a little thing of mine
in three volumes that I would like to read
to you before we die; and the Next to the
Last Man will gather himself into an at
tituCle of comfortable attention. and cling
to each heeting breath in the hope that
the universal asphyxiation will spare him
till he knows whether They get mar
ried."
Mr. Hamlin Garland bears likewise
an assuring and hopeful front. Willing
to admit that there may be changes in
the form of the novel. he IS convinced
that there are no signs of a decline in the
interest or merit of fiction. The really
dangerous rival of the novel. in his judg-
ment. is not the newspaper. but the
drama.
eve are soon to have an enormous re-
vival of dramatic delineation Of human
slife-a new drama. vivid, swift. humor-
Gus. Our even-increasing centers OF popu-
lat;on demand the drama. and they will
have it. The theatre is to be the rival Of
both fiction and journalism"
According to Mr.. II. w Mable:
mo books are so widely read at the
moment as novels, and the recent sales
CT hau hpon orf{ra1v
beyond all former records that they have
alarmed those anxious persons who are
always expecting the decline of serious
writing. and perplexed those who thought
they knew something about the purchas-
ing capacity of the American public. It
may be that the novel is about to ex-
pire in a blaze Of popularity. but it is
more probable that NJ. Jules Verne has
been making another journey to the moon.
It is a course Of travel which literary
prophets have taken before this day and
will, continue to take to the end OF time.
Il is an amusing and interesting journey,
and it is free from expense
3 Mr.. John Kendrick Bangs approaches
tie question with whimsical humor
He says:
Tt is my impression that the literature
Of that period will be induced by pills
taken besore retiring and acting imme~
diately thereafter. The man who wants
a roenl OF certain kind will swallow
what, fer tie lack of better term, we
may call The Alfred Austin Pellet and
live the resulting poem in his dreams
Then there Will be Gaines Capsules for
Creepy Creatures, each guaranteed to
contain ter grains of gloom, and abso-
lutely free from humor, lightnesa. sun
shine, or other deleterious substances,
and which. taken. three times day, will
gy..Al
loid will induce dreams that will make .Du
Barry seem like Rol1o book IN contrast,
and so It will go. Some clever druggist
Will meet the literary necessities of the
hour, and put al the literature that any