"TO BE CONTINUED."

Otago Witness, Issue 2664, 5 April 1905, Page 69

"TO BE CONTINUED."

By Jessie. Macxat.

What magic hangs upon the timehonoured formula, "To be continued" ! Time-honoured, one may venture tD say, for it laid its first spell on the Englishspeaking world as far back as the year of the South Sea Bubble, some six summers after that memorable August, "when George in pudding -time came o'er." Perhaps a greater contrast could scarcely be found than between the first English serial and some of its fashionable successors of to-day, bristling with chit-chat, capitals, and thrills, neatly jointed at points of tension, and tided over every possible danger of tedhim by profuse illustration. For that first" serial was '\Kobinson Crusoe,'' which began in the Lcndon Post during ITI9 and concluded a little more than a year after. Strange to think of busy London holding its breath to hear from week to w.:ek the staid recital of Robinson's bread-making and tailoring ! And how the pulse of the city must have stirred at the dramatic advent of Man Friday, and leaped to fever point at the burning of the Cham CM Taaungu — an episode absolutely unknown in the minced-up versions that alone tickle the youthful palate to-day ! We. want our bill of fare more highly S2iiced nowadays ; problematic thrills of 'passion, flashes of the occult, bold dashes into the future. Above all, the picture fiend is master of the field ; posing" as an angel of light, he extends a glozing hand to literature, who dares not refuse it,, though well she knows the specious auxiliary is seeking his own, and dazzles and distracts the would-be faithful reader, till good and bad) flavour alike in the mouth. They say ill viands taste fair in the dark ; and one fancies that the fermented vapidities that fill so much magazine space in Great Babylon would not go down without the. sauce of copious illustration. "But this is jaundice!" exclaims the young modern. "What ! can we not agree so far with Earl Doorm as to 'love that beauty should go beautifully'?" True; some will remember* how the : magnificent phantasmagoria of "She"' was i matched by the "Graphic" pictures that accompanied the weird annals of ancient Kor : and. remembering, will turn with avidity to the lovely presentments of J Ayesha in the Windsor of to-d.iy. But in the twenty years that separate "She" and ''Ayesha," there has been a "Stella Fregellius," unearthly flower of Rider Haggard's ripened wisdom ; and I for one would be content to ta!:e "Avesha" a* it is, and know that "good wine needs no bush." We are ruining our imagination by too much artistic slop food. There was a palmy time for English serials — the early Victorian era — when Britons could draw for themselves the growing image of a loved creation clear "out of Dreamland without the artist medium, — if the shade of Gnuekshank be ever excepted! Is it possible to fancy the greatest nglish man of letters to-day sheddine undisguised tears as be asks a friend : "Have you seen that Boz's Little Nelly is dead?"

Is it that we rush to serials now to get spasms^ not to find dream-friends? And since we breathe the rushing air of quick pogress, and no optimist can acknit that the sum of human tenderness or the sum of human appreciation of art is less now than then, are ire driven to conclude that genial Jules Verne is right — that the Siovel has s&en its day, and is even now going down before the almighty newspaper? Is it that- we are so in love already with the world-recited tragedy of life, the composite heroism of masses and nations, that we cannot stop • to individualise our ideals in all the "linked! sweetness of long ago'"? lliat is, are we so keenly set on the Labour problem in Australia or the stupendous modern miracle of Japanese evolution that w^liave no tears now for the death of any Little Nelly from Dreamland? Who can say?

But there was all the Od World" 10inance of lavender and pot pourri round the much-loved serial pages of thai bygone time. Dickens in All the Year Round, Mrs Henry Wood in the Aigosy, Dinah Muloek in Good Words — these and many other sterling writers marked the year's calendar for thousands of readcis in the Victoiian prime ; marked it as no serial, one fancies., ever touches the ever lippling surface of o;ir own life. But I remember one child on a fai-up Canterbury station wbo caught the full atterglow of this prolonged ecstasy of «ezial-7e&d!ss l All was fish that came to

the child's pet ; all stories that had a shadow ot a title to the name were devoured in those days of robust digestion. Even the homoeopathic dnses of ■wellwatered iomau.ee m the New Zealand Church News hod a Savour then. ]n the s e days the n eoklies of the .South Island scissored romance in a biief and summary fashion for the most pait All tales WTe for reading, but what possi- , bilities. what sudden joy, invested the infrequent foimula "To be continued " ! Was it going to be a friendly tale, that grew on acquaintance, filling the day dresms w ith -worthy heroes and tender heroines".' • Or was it going to be a chi'.ly. cold-apple-pudding of a tale that . nevc-r warmed into fragrant juiciness? Thus , the child giew novel-wise before her trm>, tasting and retasting, generalising gloriously on dim foiecasts ot the ending, half delighted, half chagrined, when the wily author spiang au absolutely unforeseen drjiouement upon her. One weekly was absolutely committed to serials — the Australasian. It was then the organ of Ada Cambridge and "Tasma,"' of Bret Harte , and Justin Macarthy — the child knew it in no other capacity, save that of a review, for it had a glorious fashion then of dissecting the novel of the week at two columns' length ; and failing the novel, what better pabulum than this review? When flooded rivers or the storm and stress of station affairs hindered the mail's J anival, what tension of suspense, what yearning over the sorrows of the loved dream-folk, transfixed. Niobe-like, for another week. But next mail day brought the wealth of Ind — two or even three fat purple covers, with their contingent chapters of lomance. ' There were so many reasons why the serial bird in the bush was fairer feathered ' than its neighbour in the hand. j It did not bring on that empty feeling behind the eyes inseparable from the de- ' molition of a book in two sittings. j It was s>o much more like tasting some compressed, many-flavoured philtre of life when one waited so long between sips for things to happen. I It was better than playing Patience to keep on tossing for forecasts ; often one was the victor ; sometimes, if the author played fair, the beating was more delight- . ful Ihan victory. I It discouraged' slipshod reading, when every line was gold-en. I It gave time to know people ; after studying a profitable hero half a yeai, one truly loved him. ; But, alas! there came a time, one hardly knew vhen or how. that brought '. no magic to irradiate the old formula. ' '"To be continued"' and "Open sesame" ceased to be one and the same thing. ! Yet T wonder whether they are not synonymous still to some far Otago child, ' as once to the little Canterbury girl. j