Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1902-09-13

who mourn his Interpretation of the
library would not lack his patronage.
Possibly the trouble with the libra
rians who are striving with this prob
lem of the boy and his reading is that
they do not comprehend the boy. Jesse
James does not appeal to him because
he is depraved, but, to adopt his own
phrase, because the robber keeps
things moving. He wants no involved
analyses of thought and action-the
time of his mental development for
that has not come yet-but he does
want a book in which something hap
pens. We take it that this is the rea-
son why so many books which libra
rians are wedding OUT as they call
the process, are popular with the boys.
Oliver Optic, for example, has come
under the ban of the new school of
censorS almost as emphatically as
Jesse James; and yet his stories ap-
peal to the boys for reason that is
very clear-something is always doing
in them. OF course Jesse James is not
to be thought of in the public library,
and it may be that Oliver Optic should
go-but the boy has got to have book
with action in it, if you want to keep
him from buying secondhand robber
stories for a nickel.-Harper's Weekly.
writer in one of the English re-
views utters a lugubrious plant about
the prevalence of the newspaper habit.
The average man, he declares, reads
nothing but the daily papers. No one
but the elect few cares nowadays for
history or literature or politics or
economics. Thoreau's opinion of
newspaper reading is recalled in this
connection: Il am sure | never read
any memorable news in a neWspaper.
II we read of one man robbed, or MUIR
dered, or killed by accident, or one
house burned. or one vessel wrecked, or
one steamboat blown up, or one COW
run over on the railroad, or one mad
dog killed, OF one lot of grasshoppers in
the winter-we never need read of an
other. One is enough. If you are ac-
quainted with the principle, what do
you care for a myriad instances and
applications? To philosopher all
news, as it is called, is gossip. and they
who edit it and read it are old women
over their tea. Yet not a few are
greedy over this gossip. 1 seri-
ously think a wit might write a twelve
month or twelve years beforehand with
sufficient accuracy. AS for Spain, for
instance, if you know how to throw in
Don Carlos and the Infanta. and Don
Pedro and Seville and Granada. from
time to time in the right proportions
they may have changed a little since |
saw the papers-and serve up a bull
fight when other entertainments fail,
IT will be true to the letter. and give us
as good an idea of the exact state or
ruin of things in Spain as the most
succinct and lucid reports under this
head in the newspape and as for
England almost the last significant
scrap of news from that quarter was
the Revolution of 1919; and if you
have learned the history of her crops
for an average year, you never need
attend to that thing again, unless your
speculations are of merely pecuniary
character. If one may judge who rare
ly looks into the newspapers, nothing
new ever does happen in foreign parts,
a French Revolution not excepted
Undoubtedly we are somewhat over
doing the newspaper habit in these
days. But it is better that the masses
should read the yellowest output of
the daily press than that they should
read nothing at all. There is more
hope of the boy who devours dime
novels than of the boy who shuns read
ing altogether. And the newspaper
reading American is a pleasanter
spectacle for the social philosopher to
contemplate than is the iliterate Mag
var or Slav. On the whole the news
l,aI i- ltyit1 10
symptom.-Boston Transcript.
THE Two Nanrevels,' Booth Tark-
ingtons novel, which has appeared
serially in McClure's Magazine, will be
published in book form next month by
Mcclure, Phillips & Co. Henry HUT
furnishes the illustrations. The same
house will also publish Joel Chandler
Harris's Gabriel Tolliver" in the fall
Sir Gilbert Parker'S famous novel,
"The Right of Way" is to be added to
the list of dramatiZations of popular
fiction. Sir Gilbert is now engaged in
putting the finishing touches to the
play which he himself has written. Mr..
William Faversham will impersonate
Charley Steele. under Mr.. Charles
October. The novel is eminently suited
to stage adaptation: it has a strong
central character of a unique and in
tensely interesting type, story of
great power and suspense, and many
striking dramatic situations. Indeed,
the dramatist is more likely to be en-
barrassed by the richness of his ma
terial than by any lack of it for stage
preSenta ton. 1t will be interesting to
view Sir Gilbert's choice of dramatic
scenes for the unfolding and growth of
Charley Steele's character within the
limits of a stage performance.
The September number of The North
American Review, which is just out.
leads off with a symposium on the
question "Will the Novel Disappear
by distinguished quintette of Ameri-
can authors. The discussion has been
precipitated by NJ. Jules Vernes re-
cent remarks in the London Daily
Mail to the effect that in fifty or a hun
dred years from now novels or ro-
nlances win have entirely disappeared.
and will be supplanted by the daily
newspaper On this point-that the
race will in future read newspapers
instead OF novels, and will file the for
mer as its best records for posterity-