The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1916-01-28

river receded, the people gave pres
ents to one another, the children re-
ceived toys and dolls, and the story
OF Cinderella was told. This was ages
before the Christian era.
A little study of folk lore shows Ne
how closely the human race is bound
together, how common and universal
our beliefs and superstitfons are, how
enduring, and how charitable we
should be toward the inherited or in
born nations of all the creatures of
! earth. The worlds superstitions from
savage to civilized life would fill vol
umes. There are thousands of charms,
omens, cures, philters and queer tails
mans. One can easily imagine how
ghosts, fairies, good and bad angels,
stories of giants and tales OF haunted
places, made up the bulk of the talk
around the big chimney place long be-
fore these blessed days of scientific
exactness. Many child went to bed
shivering and heard in every wind
sigh or creaking bough the voices of
the strange creatures that inhabited
the Invisible world.
Woo Maiden Fancy.
In spite of all this we love to WOO
old gods and spirits. We still love to
imagine nymphs and dryads in the
groves and fairies hiding in the mea-
dow grass. We still love to read of
Unlucky Hans, Little Golden Hair,
Frog Prince, Ugly Duck, Hop O. My
Thumb, and all the fantastic and beau
tiful dreams of humanity raining down
upon US from the child hood of the
hn nd h 11C
and meadows, willows dipping and
seem to invoke mysterious longing
for we know not what. Every bird
song, every soft note of harmony, is
a promise; every CLINT of beauty in
the sun, every sweep of landscape in
the morning light. is a guarantee-a
promise of ultimate right, pledge of
ultimate justice.
The old idea in fairy tales, that the
good triumph and the bad come to
grief, fingered long in the novel and
drama. The climax of the fairy story
was a marriage celebrated with. great
pomp. The end of the novel and play
was a forgiving father, the villain ex-
plating his crimes, happy wedding
bells and twins. Wife, home, domes-
III "Clc tAC dCAAC VI IAC o1A
school of fiction.
But realism, steel buildings, fireless
cookers and the exact science have
entered. We are demanding prediges-
ted novels. We are asking for stories
that are true" H. G. Wells, the So
cialist novelist, tells us that I'VE are
going to deal with political questions,
and religious questions, and social
questions" in the future novel. So in
our passion for pay dirt" we are for
getting that the beautiful is as useful
as the unbeautiful, and that the red
rose or purple clematis may be as po-
tent for good as the voorhees, wash
ing machine or the laborless referen-
DUN. We are demanding the real"
Well, the Police Court is real. The
Police Gazette is intensely real. So
we are getting tales of slaughter
houses, the morgue, the pig sty, the
dunghill, the sewer, the red light dis
triCt.
Arnold Bennett Sins.
The greatest of all sinners in this
phase of fiction is Arnold Bennett, the
English novelist. His novels are sat
urated with morbidness of Ecclesias-
tes-"All is vanity" With him the
path of glory leads but to the grave"
He delights in telling us that the whole
human race is stepped in melancholy
He shows us sores, cancerOus flesh
paralytics, slow painful deaths, the