Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1905-08-26
NOVELS OF 0LDEN DAYS.
Kind Grandmother Read Was Usually
Romantic and Never Short on
Pages.

n difficult task to set oneself is to find
copy of any novel of over fifty years
ago, or to learn of such possessions exist
ing in any family. Il is only when we
get into some old chronicle, where by
chance mention is made of the popular
novels that held danes and maids spell
bound, that we get the slightest notion
of the sort which had their day and then
vanished into oblivion. But the ma
teriais necessary for composing the plots
of all novels in that olden time we know
quite little about. Ladies of quality
and humber folk, the high and mighty
or both sexes, would, II appears. have
nothing to do with an author whose hero
ines did not frequently faint and We're
revived by glasses of water, always very
near at hand. Sons usually had to be
banished for what we consider trifes by
their hard-hearted fathers.
A novel without clandestine mar
rage was an exceedingly slow affair."
Maids to be interesting had frequently
to lose the shelter of home, and their in
heritance, too, for falling in love with
the son of an enemy of the family.
There had to be secret doors and dun
geons, browning battlements. meats and
massive chains, and. unfailingly, a dou-
bic portcullis. Flights tn conyents. or to
oriental lands, were thought much of, so
were ghosts, castles, bleeding wounds
and quick recoveries. The favorite hero
Inc always had a swanlike neck and
an alabaster skin, dovelike eyes, raven
halr, cheeks like roses and lips like cher
rles. All this had to be supplemented by
serenades, DISCUSSES, lost children and
elopements which were like shuttles that
Wove the thread of the story to and fro
This and far more constituted the charm
that was hidden in the pages of all nov
els that our dear old grams" fondly
pOred over.
No short stories would have suited
those sainted ancestors. Time was too
abundant and had to be pleasantly filled
by every possible means. In this way
popular novels grew and thrived, for they
ran on from four to six volumes No
others would have answered. A Miss
Owenson, who wrote a novel called Ida
of Athens" in her description of the
heroine gives a fair idea of the feminine
sentiment of the day. Like Aurora. the
eXtremities of her delicate limbs were
rosed with flowing hues, and her little
foot as it pressed its naked beauty on
scarlet cushion resembled that of
youthful Thetis."
Another novel, ''The Velvet Cushion"
the Vicar of Harlow mildly hints against
the restraints of the Established church.
The book created q great sensation no
doubt, and filled the minds of the godly
with horror in the year 1872 "The
Countess de la Favette" in 1896 wrote
a popular romance called Henrietta,
Princess Royal of England" in which
she laid bare the intrigues of the court
of Versailles in glowing language.
Strange as it may seem. Macaulay did
not disdain to read some OF those old
novels. it is said, ana with his marvellous
memory he would repeat pages of them.
Mrs. Meeks. who wrote very romantic
novels, he seemed partial to, as for in
stance, Count st. Blanchard" Mid
night Wedding" and Abbey of CHG
ney."
A wide stretch of years lies between
those novels so old and our new style of
fiction. Romance and sentiment in the
meantime has been entirely brushed
aside by the modern writer's with their
problem and sex novels, in which ath-
letic girls of the period figure. and young
multimillionaires, where actresses al
ways marry dukes, and divorces in high
life as well as low hold the rapt atten-
ton of readers. Sporty and slangy hero
ines of our day replace the fainting Ara
bellas, as golf and tennis have banished
the mincing steps and round shoulders
of the ringeted beauties, the Clarissas
and Sophronias, who simpered and
blushed over the merest trifies. because
it was the pretty feminine thing to do
in and out of novels.-New York Sun,