The daily Gate City and constitution-Democrat. (Keokuk, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1918-01-24

Inc anniversary OF Wllk1e COLLINS
birth reminds us that he is now as
dead in literature as if he had never
been born. Why Is this? 1t is only
! twenty-nine years since he died.
George Eliot is thirty-eight years dead,
but as figure in literature she is as
much alive today as Ceryantes or
iGoethe. The literary extinction OF
| Wilkie Collins and of all writer's Of his
school once they pass away from earth
| is due to the fact that they are mere
manufacturers of fiction and that they
sacrifice character TO incident and TO
| plot.
| The novel as work OF art is& a
story, but not merely story. The
epic is story, but it is story in
which the lives and actions of heroes
are depicted
| A novel in which sensationalism is
the only element is bound to be evan
escent. Collins had the faculty for
whetting his readers curiosity. In
1.-The Woman in White" he concentrate
| ed our attention on the phantom like
! figure around which he threw veil
of mystery. The veil was withdrawn,
and the being who interested us turn
ed out to be an escaped lunatic. His
other books, though some of them
va atssSss9 ls grest -ra.cra drill: Ina d
| the same vice The plot was artife-
| tally involyed: the denouement was 3
| disappointment.
mo Name" is the complicated his
| tory of two sisters over whom hung
the shadow of illegitimacy In the end
commonplaceness follows implicitly
THE Moonstone" is the story of a gem
which is highly valued because Hin
doc legend has attached to it a GER
tain sacredness. "Armadale'' is a tale
of female poisoner, and the details OF
the story are gruesome in the extreme.
When the. book is finished the reader
is relieved, for the whole thing is a
nightmare "The Dead Secret" is a
wretched story in which the only art
exhibited is the art of keeping the
truth hidden up to the last page.
Collins began his career as a novel
list by writing Gothic historical re-
nance of the fourth century in style
not unlike that of Sir Walter Scott.
1t is fiction much superior to his
later books-but nobody read it, and so
he became a popular sensationalist
His fate as an author should be a
warning to the producers of best
sellers"
If the writer of fiction only aims at
selling his books and making money,
Wilkie Collins will seem to Ilim-or
her-a great success. For time THE
Woman in White" and "The Dead Sc
cret" were read by everybody. Then
they were utterly forgotten But a
great novel can never be forgotten It
is just 302 years-to be strictly accu-
rate-since Cervantes completed Don
Quixote." But today that immortal
work has just as much fascination as
1t had in 1915. Don Quixote is real
creation. He appears before us as one
of the great human family. In spite of
his rusty lance and buckler and his
lean nag, he is not a bit antiquated.
He is 'one of us" and will be the same
to our great-grandchildren He and
Sancho-the wild idealist and gross
sensualist-wi1l always appeal to
lovers of human nature. The don's
death will be as absorbing as the adj
ventures Of his mad life, and thou
sands of readers yet unborn will pom
der over the notary's sage remark that
''in no book of chivalry had he ever
read Of any knight-errant dying in his
bed so calmly and SO like christian
as Don Quixote."
Fielding, though chronologically he
belongs to the eighteenth century. is
a writer for the twentieth and every
succeeding century because of his rich
humanity and his subtle knowledge OF
character. No wonder that Gibbon
said TON Jones" would out1iye the
house of Hapsburg and the palace of
the Escurial. Just now the duration