The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-06-22
IN THE LITERARY FIELD
IMPOSSIBLE IN REASON THAT ALL
NOVELS SHALL "END WELL"
Process of Making Books in Modern
Style-Length of Novels-Short
Stories-Book Notes.

Once more the voice Of the turtle is heard
in the literary land. says the Philadelphia
Press. This time it is declaring for what
it calls happy endings' to novels and loud
ly protesting against unhappy ones and
such as it conceives to be no endings at
all. The cry is really an old one; as old,
indeed. as the modern novel, and is just
at present the b~itterest fruit of romantic
historic fiction. 1t is the outgrowth of
a very simple and primitive, almost saw
age state Of mind; the desire to nave
the aroused emotions quoted definitely
and pleasantly; the preference, in a word,
for comfortable untruths as opposed to
uncomfortable truths. But the cry is never
theless strong enough and enough regarded
to warrant more than a word of reply, and
the best reply is an appeal to the somewhat
hackneyed, yet fundamentally true, Shaks-
perean smile of art as the mirror-bearer
to life.
Consider. first, the popular aversion to
the novel which does not end with every
mystery explained and every character
finally disposed of for good or i'll. The
placid, easy-going mind of the average
reader has been awakened to an interest
in the destinies of several persons. 1t does
not credit the author with thus awaken
ing it; it feels rather that 1t has volun-
tarily allowed itself TO be so aroused. and
1t is indignant if it is left, at the end Of
the book, with any horrid uncertainty about
what eventually happened TO everybody
concerned. 1t complains that a certain
author doesn't get you anywhere" and it
wakes angry through unwilling and vain
imaginings as to whether the creature of
another writer opened the door upon a lady
or a tiger. Yet the life never ''gets US
anywhere" so far as its ultimate riddle is
concerned. Life itself, by all human meas
urements. has practically no end of any
sort. Lives end, but life goes ruthlessly and
triumphantly forward. Every individual
throughout his journey is walking upon the
thin crust Of the most unfathomable mys-
terieS, and at that journeys end passes
from our sight to open for himself one of
two doors not at all unlike those in Mr..
StOekton'S amous story.
The same analogy holds good, and with
even more force, in the case of what is
conventionally known as the bad or "un-
happy" ending. The SNUG Anglo-SaXon
conscience-really hating to have it's arbi-
trary theories defled and to be told that
right is not always triumphant and virtue
not invariably rewarded-cries out w
nave so much sorrow and poverty in our
lives; give us something that will amuse
and make us forget these realities!' Could
any plea be laser? 1t is a plea so easy to
make, the plea of those Jews whom Isaiah
denounced, which say to the seers, see
not; and to the prophets, prophesy not unto
us right things, speak unto US smooth
things, prOphesy deceits." Mr.. Frank Nor
rS has recently pointed out that the novel;
reading class is a comparatively well-to-do-
class, which does not see the ills of poverty
and has relatively few sorrows of its own.
Ii simply does not want to be disturbed.
whereas IF" says Mr.. Norris, there is
much pain in life, that is all the more rea-
son why it should appear in a class of lit
erature which, in it's highest form, is a sin
cere transcription of life"
All this is not by way of e~Xalting the
purpose novel, still less the preaching one.
Nor is II a reflection upon happy or anus
ing fiction. There is beauty and joy, ro-
nance and humOr. in life, and heaven for
bid that there should not be humor and rO-
nance, JOY and beauty, in literature. But
the field of literature is all life; literature
as a whole must express life as a whole,
and, as pain and wrong and death play
their tremendous parts upon the stage Of
the world, so they must play them upon the
stage of literature. 1t is vain to protest
do harm TO no man who is made of the
proper stuff, and, just as the greatest lives
are tragedies, so are greatest poems and
dramas and novels The real man who
wants to forget his own sorrows will not
attempt forgetfulness in drugged and
false amusements. For long he cannot
there forget them. He will rather forget
his individual ills in the authentically-pic-
tured ills of others, and rise from truly
great books with sympathies so much
broadened and heart so much kinder that
he Will lose his own sorrows in the c%ontinu-
Gus endeavor to lead, as best he may, a life
which will tend to lessen, however slightly,
the sorrows of the world.