The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-10-17
THE NEW PUBLICATIONS.
SOME OF THE LATEST BOOKS OF
 THE SEASON.

The Late Mr. Norris "ResponsibliItss
 of the NoveIisI"-Laura BridgmRn's
 Lffe-E. F. HarkIns' "The schemersi -
 Andrew BaIfour's "GoIdeB Kingdom"
 -sir William nIagney's "countZlrka"
 -asPrfnce Hager," by Upton Sinclair
 Another Brenda Book-Othsr Books.
 Tn 4The Responsibilities of the Novel, ist, and Other Literary Essays" Messrs. Doubleday, Page & Company have col- lected twenty-five fugitive pieces" written by the late MT. Frank Norris for various periodicals. They are thor oughly interesting as showing the real and earnest seriousness with which this talented young writer took his literary work, and the fine purpose and trans parent high ideality with which they are pervaded. Illustrative of this se- rious view is this his creed: 1.-The pull pit, the press and the novel-these in- disputably are the great moulders of public opinion and public morals to- day. But the pulpit speaks but once week; the press is read with lightning haste, and the morning news is waste paper by noon. But the novel goes into the home to stay. It is read word for word. is talked about, discussed; its in- f1uence penetrates every chink and cor ner of the family. &
 .'Yet novelists are not found wanting who write for money. do not think it is asking too much of credulity. This would not matter if they wrote the truth. But these gentlemen who are in literature for their own pocket every time have discovered that for the mo- ment the people have confounded the wrong with the right and prefer that which is lie to that which is true. Very well, then say these gentlemen. If they want lie they shall have it, and they give the people lie in return for royalties.
 saThe surprising thing about this is that you and I and all the rest of us do not consider this as disreputable-do not yet realize that the novelist has re- responsibilities. We condemn an editor who sells his editorial columns, and we reviIe the pulpit attainted of venality. But the venal novelist he whose infiu- ence is greater than either the press or pulpit--him we greet with wink and the tongue in the cheek.
 ''This should not be so. Somewhere the protest should be raised, and those of us who see the practice of this fraud should bring home to ourselves the re- alization that the selling of one hundred and fifty thousand books is serious business. The people have a right to- the truth as they have right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is not right that they be exploited and deceived with false views of life. false characters, false sentiment, false morality, false history, false philosophy, false emotions, false heroism, false mo- tions of self-sacrifce, false views of re- ligion, of duty, of conduct and of man. .ners. @...
 .sThe man who can address an audi ence of a hundred and fifty thousand people, who-unenlightened- what he says, has a heavy duty to per- form and tremendous responsibilities to shoulder. and he should address him. self to his task not with the fippancy of a catchpenny juggler at the county fair, but with earnestness, with soberness, with sense of his limitations and with all the abiding sincerity that by the fa- vor and mercy of the gods may be his" Here is MT. Norris defense of the nov eI with purpose"
 Tt is the complaint of the coward, this cry against the novel with pur- yl. foe, and griefs of others to notice. Take this element from fiction, take from it the power and opportunity to prove that in Justice, crime and inequality do exist and what is left. Just the amusing novels, the novels that entertain. The juggIer in spangles, with his balanc- ing pole and gilt ball, does this. consider the modern novel from this You may consider the modern novel from this point of view. It may be a fiippant, paper-covered thing of swords and cloaks, to be carried on a railway Journey and to be thrown out of the window when read, together with the sucked oranges and peanut shells. Or it may be great force, that works to- gether with the pulpit and the universi- ties for the good of the people, fearless ly proving that power is abused, that the strong grind the faces of the weak. that an evil tree is still growing in the midst of the garden, that undoing fol- lows hard upon unrighteousness, that the course of empire is not yet finished, and that the races of men have yet to work out their destiny in those great and terrible movements that crash and grind and rend asunder the pillars of the houses of the nations"
 As says the Brooklyn Times: MT. Norris was a man of high ideals, no dreamer, but doer, a man with a hearty, manly contempt for shams, above all in literature. He was an un- compromising foe of make believes. He had splendid earnestness. A vigorous sanity lies back of his words. There is the savor of enthusiasm, the enthusi- asm that is not question of youth or maturity, but of temperament. These essays glow with it, and yet they have what is not a common accompaniment, good plain common sense.
 While the essays speak with peculiar force to those interested in letters, as calling, no less truly do they speak to intelligent readers, who are not victims of the fiction fever. The book is stimu-