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

buoyant faith in the future OF the
novel He mixtures thus the beginning
and the end:
1.-THE cave-dweler, sitting at his
cavern door in the cool of the evening,
and absently picking out the simple
chords of stone-age music on the
sinews stretched upon the thlgh-Done
of the brother he had eaten, listened
with the same rapture to the tarradld-
dies of some gifted neighbor as the
notwithstanding 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 little
thing of mine in three volumes that L
would like to read to you before we
die: and the Next to the Last Man will
gather himself into an attitude of COM
Portable attention, and cling to each
fleeing 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 decline in
the interest or merit of fiction. The
really dangerous rival of the novel, in
his Judgment, is not the newspaper,
but the drama.
I'VE are soon to have an enormous
revival of dramatic delineation of hui
man life-a new drama, vivid, swift,
humorous, and absolutely contem-
poraneous. Our ever-increasing CEN
tres of population demand the drama,
and they will have it. The theatre is
to be the rival of both fiction and jour-
nalism."
According to Mr.. H. w. Mabie:
NO books are so widely read at the
moment as novels, and the recent sales
of popular stories have been SO entirely
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 some
thing about the purchasing capacity
of the American public. 1t may be
that the novel is about to expire in a
blaze of popularity, but it is more
probable that NJ. Jules Verne has been
making another journey to the moon
1t is a course of travel which literary
prophets have taken before his day
and will continue to take to the end of
time. 1t is an amusing and interest
ing journey, and it is free from eX-
pense.'
Mr. John Kendrick Bangs approach
es the question with whimsical
humor. He says:
1T is my impression that the litera-
ture of that period will be induced by
pills taken before retiring and acting
Immediately thereafter. The man
who wants a poem of a certain kind
will swallow what, for the lack of a bet
ter term. we may call The Alfred Aus
tin Pellet and live the resulting poem
in his dreams. Then there will be
Gaines Capsules for Creepy Crea-
lures each guaranteed to contain ter
grains of gloom. and absolutely free
| from humor, lightness, sunshine, q
other deleterious substances, and
which, taken, three times day, will
enable every man to be his own
| 'ManXman.' In the drama The
Belasco Tabloid will induce dreams
| that Will make 'Du Barry seem like 4
| Rollo book in contrast, and so it will
go. Some clever druggist will meet
the literary necessities of the hour
and put UP all the literature that any
body can possibly want in small doses
| in every variety, and at a price whicf
will bring it within the reach of all"