Page:Peterson's Magazine 1867 a.pdf/469

 EDITOR'S

TABLE.

EDITORIAL CHIT - CHAT. writers from true art will, to the extent of that departure, THE TRUE AND FALSE IN FICTION.-We are so often offered affect their permanent position in literature. They may stories for this Magazine that violate the true principles of be popular now-they will not be so hereafter. fiction, we are so frequently called on to notice novels of FALSE HAIR AS A CAUSE OF DISEASE. The newspapers, the same description, that a word or two on what is true art in literature, and what is not, may be wholesome and lately, have been full of sensation articles as to " Chignons welcome. being a cause of disease." A London physician of emiThe entire " sensational school," then, of which Miss nence, Dr. Tillburry Cox, has just set the matter in its true Baddon is so conspicuous an example, is as false in art as light. In a paper read before the Harveian Society he disit is in morals, and false in art because it is false in morals. cussed the influence of parasites in the production of disOf course, in so speaking, we do not mean to say that eased conditions of the skin. It has been asserted, first, novels should be didactic, and carry a moral on their face; that false hair contains the germs of pediculi, which are for that would be as great an error in another direction. developed by the warmth supplied by the human head; We do not use the word " morals" in the narrow, conven- { secondly, that bodies called " gregarina" exist in false hair, tional sense at all : but in that wider sense, which has been and may become pediculi. The first statement is wholly recognized in all time. Murder and adultery have always incorrect; but the so-called " nits" are nothing but empty been considered crimes. It is as much false art in litera- shells, whence the young pediculi have escaped The ture, therefore, to elevate murderers and adulteresses into female pediculus lays her ova at the part of the hair close heroines, as it is to choose monsters for subjects of the to the scalp; in six days the young are hatched, the empty sculptor's chisel, or the painter's brush. Nor is it true shell is carried forward by the growing hair, and as this is art to enlist the sympathics of the reader on the side of a cut from the head at the distance of from one to two inches, criminal, and then, at the close, compromise with insulted no true ova are brought away with it. The inference is justice by dismissing him to punishment. This is the clear that no false hair ever contains the materials from way in the " Guy Livingstone" school of fiction; and it is which pediculi develope, and where these are present their existence must be accounted for by uncleanliness. The only one degree less vicious in art than the other school. A late writer, in one of the English quarterlies, has second statement is equally untrue : gregarines are only stated the case correctly. " The base of all artístic genius," found in Russian hair, which does not enter the English le says, "is the power of conceiving humanity in a new, market; they have vegetable affinities, and never give rise striking, rejoicing way; of putting a happy world of its to any form of insect. In his large experience of diseased own creation in place of the meaner world of common states, Dr. Fox stated he had never seen them once on the days; of generating around itself an atmosphere with a hair. Lastly, he described a real source of danger as yet novel power of refraction, selecting, transforming, recom- unnoticed by any observer. On some of the light-brown or bining the images it transmits, according to the choice of reddish false hair, of German origin, he had found a species the imaginative intellect. In exercising this power, paint- { of " mildew" fungus, which unquestionably would, if iming and poetry have a choice of subject almost unlimited." planted upon the surface of weak persons, give rise to What is thus said of poetry holds good equally of fiction. "ring-worm," and he produced microscopic evidence, and Sir Walter Scott instinctively acted on this idea. Shaks- instanced cases in which he had apparently seen mischief peare also obeyed the same rule. Whatever he touched he result in this way. Cleanliness is a great preventitive of ennobled. The strongest argument against his having evil, and such hair should be subjected to proper processes written "Timon of Athens" is conceded to be the repulsive- to insure protection against the production of disease. ness of the story. We rise from the perusal of any great While the great majority of the statements that have been master in poetry or fiction with elevated sentiments, with made recently about " Chignons," are wholly untrue and heroic impulses, with longings for what is better and loftier absurd ; there is no doubting the fact that, without proper than common life. Whatever epic or novel does this for precaution, the use of false hair may give rise to certain us is, so far forth, true in art; whatever novel or drama uncomfortable conditions of the part next which it is worn, but that even this source of evil may be remedied. fails to do this, is, to that extent, false. A French critic, Joubert, has said this in different words. Fiction has no business to exist," he writes, " unless it is OUR READERS WILL have noticed that every number of more beautiful than reality. Certainly the monstrosities "Peterson" contains the same amount of printed matter. of fiction may be found in the booksellers' shops ; you buy The present number, for instance, has as many pages as them there for a certain number of days; but they have no the January number had; and each future number will place in literature, because in literature the one aim of contain a similar quantity, at least. This is in striking conart is the beautiful. Once lose sight of that, and you have trast to some of the other ladies' magazines, which swell the more frightful reality." Of course it may be said, in- out very big at the beginning of the year, but in summer deed it is said, that whatever is possible in real life is a collapse frightfully. As the Elberton Gazette says :-" For legitimate subject for fiction. Truth, we are told, is always the same amount of money, ' Peterson' furnishes more inin place. This is something like inviting one's friends to teresting reading matter than any magazine we receive." an entertainment, and then taking them into a dissectingOUR COLORED PATTERN, for this month, is an " Oriental room to study anatomy. An execution is, perhaps, necessary in its way; it is certainly a fact ; but civilized people Tobacco-Pouch," which is to be worked in chain-stitch, in have ceased to make a show of the gallows. Whatever is red. It may, however, be worked in any other color, if morbid is unfit for fiction. We do not deny that some of preferred. This is the only Magazine, remember, that the ablest novelists of the day err more or less against this gives these colored patterns regularly! Some of our cotemcanon. But their practice cannot make wrong right. We poraries publish weak imitations at the beginning of the have fallen on evil times ; false taste creates false taste. year, but seem to dread the expense of continuing them in But such times will not last forever. The departure of our every number. 460