Life — February 20, 1896 — page 8: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

HORSE TERMS. FOURTEEN HANDS HIGH. THE AVERAGE MAN'S SATISFACTION WITH HIMSELF. HE death of Paul Verlaine has renewed discussion of degeneracy as an element in certain kinds of art. The abnormal quality in literary genius is dwelt upon by all sorts of uninformed writers looking around foratopic over which can be spread smatterings of sci- entific information got at second-hand. The whole discussion is outside the scope of this column ; but it is curious that no writer has retorted on those assailing craft that they are narrow and half-informed ; that any great success is abnormal. The average well-bal- anced man who sees many sides of many questions and whom you consider the type of sanity is wot a great success. The very bal- ance of his faculties that you praise keeps him peacefully sailing along in the quiet sea in which he happens to be launched. But a great financier, for instance, is never called a degenerate, and yet he is the most in- scrutable of beings to the average man of well-balanced judgment among his associates. He succeeds by a certain combination of force and foresight, often mixed with unscrupu- lousness, that isa marvel to men who watch the game. If you talk with them about it they will say, Yes, he showed a great head in managing that affair, but he did so-and-so that no self-respecting man would stoop to, even for success. In other words, the great financier, or mer- chant, or lawyer, or general, has a way of succeeding because he sees in all the world nothing of any moment except his particular undertaking. For the time being all laws bend to the game that he is playing. Now this is just as abnormal as the attitude of a certain kind of literary man or artist who ignores all laws but those he believes to be the laws of his art. It looks as though you must be an average man if you want to be considered normal by the bulk of your fellow-men. All the same, it would be difficult to convince the truly great financier or general that he showed ‘symp- toms of insanity. . . * ET any well-fed, well-housed and, edu- cated normal man read the reéently published literary trifle by Stevenson¥and Henley—the melodramatic farce, * Macaire" (Stone & Kimball), and then in the comfort of his arm-chair let him try to imagihe his own brain as evolving those few pages out of nothingness. It is difficult enough for what he calls his well-balanced faculties to follow the dozen characters through the printed pages, without summoning out of the dark action, scenery and dramatic climaxes. But there are plenty of men in the business of making plays who have done things as good as ‘Macaire," and far better for stage pur- poses, No, my well-balanced, normal friend, you are not the biggest part of the world, though Tam convinced that you are having the easiest and best time in it, and you represent the large maiority, But the abnormal fellows are blazing the tracks in which your children will serenely and comfortably walk. Be a little charitable toward them, for their tot ts often hard! . * © THERE are many original things in the novelette by Eleanor Stuart, called “*Stonepastures” (Appleton). The adjec- tives which first come to hand when you think about it are strength and reticence. It takes art to make a woman barber a dignified figure, and a big Swede, reduced bya blast to a blind and deaf misshapen hulk, heroic, Yet these are the people who have our sympathies and admiration. Moreover, it takes artistic reti- cence to keep the emotions from running away with the story in the dramatic situation that is evolved, The compact and vigorous THIS IS HOW YOUNGHUSBAND’ KNOW THAT HIS WIFE MAKES THE HERSELF. style, which has the marks upon it of inteili- gent care and choice of words, has made real the furnace town and the rude people who do its work, The minor characters, no matter how lightly sketched, stand alone; and the dramatic conclusion is skilfully and pictur- esquely managed. It is a pleasure to find an American story by anew writer that stands alone without squint- ing at some French or English fashion in fic- tion. Droch. ECESSITY may know no law, but in its administrative du- ties it is never accused of incom- petence, comicbooks.com