LIBRARY EXPLORERS.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 473, 3 April 1909, Page 9

LIBRARY EXPLORERS.

Everything now is given a chance to be what is called romantic. Nothing which will go conveniently into a column or a boot is allowed to escape, , and writers hurry about tho world looking for colourj' and atmdsphere, and the rest- of their stock-in-trade. Never in fact, has the world been cncouraged to apr pear more interesting, or' been' treated with such appreciation.

Everything now is hailed' by a host of novelists, and journalists, and poets'. Inventions, discovorios, and ideas aro all eagerly; snapped up by? an- attentivo press, and handed on to writers and "the public;. '■ So Voracious is this appetite"-for anything" new, for anything to tickle the jade'd-public'jjalati, that it has to be gratified ' not : inu tile morning but in the evening. r ,fs : served up both at tho breakfast' table' aniPat' dinner. .

The question seems to be whether tho siipv' ply will always bo equal to thi' demand; whether, in short, thero will ahyays be enough "copy" to'go round.' Never before, it must be admitted, has the world been put through so severe a test df publicity ; and never before has. so much romance, and sensation, and li'rilliancpljbgen' ipxpected .ifroW'it. Only a Meal's -ago,- when.- joiiyialists' were a • compa;rfiliii'ely> siha]r-"bodV,"' : aria''"'tire : world was comparatively, unexplored, the public did not concern itself with anything outsido a , small circle/. - . Newspapers were chiefly parochial, and'writers of book's were content-with material found in 'their own country.'

Then came the discovery of tho world, by means of fast, methods of locomotion, Cook's .tours,, and the telegraph. At once newspapers widened their field, and books promptly followed their Parochialism was no longer possible, and writers seized eagerly on the now material offered to them. Graduallj; the newspaper began to .take tho place of the-Muse. Plots abounded at the breakfast table, and local colour could be had through tile kindly agency of the railway companies. I l or the first time the world was exposed to the public gaze, and as a natural result the public insisted on being told everything about it, whether in novels, or books of trove!, or biographies. Writers responded willingly, and the present flood of books started.

It was then—during this nineteenth-cen-tury discovery of the world—that writers nourished. In the last half of -the century there was nothing old; something new hapPfl?, every day; and there was not scarcity of literary material. Impressions" started. America, Canada, Australia, New : Zealand, and the whole of the Continent, were-, put into books. New atmospheres and local colours were appropriated by different authors. Mr. Stanley Weyman took France; Mr. Seton Merriman Russia and Spain; Mr. Marion Crawford Italy; Mr. J.-M. Barrie Scotland; Mr. Robert Hichens Sicily and the Sahara; Mr. Hall A G J sl ° T of , M ? n ! Mr - R" I'--Stevenson the South Sea Islands; Dr. Nansen-the North "ole. And so. 011. . '

England was attacked ,in detail. Mr' J-homas Hardy took Dorset; Mr'.'Eden Phillpotts Devon; Mr. Hilaire,. Belloc, Sussex; Mr. W.W.Jacobs, the East Coast. It would, m fact, be easy to make a literary map of England, showing how each district has its author.

Soon every country was put into a guidebook; and it can safely be said that at the present moment there is barely a square yard of England ■ which has not been' adequately

The position is this. In the last fortyyears writers and journalists have been busily engaged in discovering new material. V rom Land's End to John o'Groats, and from one end of the,world to the other, almost every secret has been uncovered, and almost every romance made public. V\ hat will happen \iiext? It is obvious that the World_ pan 0n1y,,: stand a ,certain amount of publicity. After a certain point bound to be repetition. His tin's already .started? ; (.1 think so. Already Arherica has been discovered" scores of times, and Columbus has been superseded by Mr. William Archer, bir I'rederick Treves;-, and many others. Hardly a month passes without sbmb : fresh impressions of America being published, and as volume succeeds volume it, is inevitable that public interest should decline. South Africa has already been the subject of hundreds of books, and it is difficult to believe that its capacity is not coming to an end. Other countries are in a simliar condition, and the only'parts of tho earth which havo not, from a literary point of view, been pretty well exhausted, aro Lapland and the Arctic circle.

The world has ceased to be the sensation it was, say, fifty years ago. AVe are getting used to jt and everyday writers will have more difficulty in making it interesting. Owing to tile spread of civilisation 'adventure has almost gone out, and it has become necessary to introduce a new danger in the form of the motor car or the aeroplane. There is, for instance, nothing exciting to be said now about Bussia —except from the motorist's point of view. Travel lias become so dull owing to the absence of highwaymen, and other dangers, that men are forced to try to recover somo of the lost spirit of adventure by racing along the roads at 30 or 40 miles an hour.

Obviously, then, it is of vital importance to authors that the- coliquest of the air should be achieved as soon as possible. Onlv by the aeroplane can the literary situation lie saved. Tlio earth has given out almost all that it has, and it is necessary now to make use of the sky.

Already Mr. Jules Verne and Mr. Wells have realised the necessity, and wo have oven had some impressions of Mars. But there

are several other planets left, and there should bo plenty of scope for everyone in the solar system.

It would, however, bo as well to suggest at once that when the time comes for the exploratioh of the air .the right men should be chosen. Think, for instance, how brilliantly Mr. Filson Young would have discovered America,' and how much moro adequately than Columbus lie would have described his experiences. No. mistakes of this must be made in future. Mr. G. Iv. Chesterton should be commissioned to discover Jupiter; Mr. lludyard Kipling might be given Mars; Mr. liider Haggard should be dispatched to tlio Plough ; and Mr. Max Beerbohm to the moon.—E. Clephan Palmer, in "The Book Monthly." i'