VANISHING FAVORITES
VANISHING FAVORITES
It is nearly twelve months since anyone has lamented the disappearance of our old favorite characters of fiction. While these expressions of sorrow are undoubtedly sincere, they are seldom practical. No one, for instance, has ever suggested any method for the perpetuation of the heroes and villains of the old plays and romances. No one has urged that when the government subsidizes authors, and pensions poets, a sum shall be set aside for such writers as will agree to stick to the old-fashioned characters. Yet it would prove effective.
Of its desirability nothing need be said.
It is no answer to those who regret the passing of their old friends to say that they can still be found in the old books. That is like sending to a museum to view dried bones, some person who yearns to behold the ichthyosaurus splashing among the waves, or the pterodactyl soaring overhead. Indeed, the cases are similar for more than one reason. How greatly would the joy of life increase if we only had a few extinct animals left! The African hunter returns with an assortment of hippopotamuses, elephants, and jubjub birds. It would be more delightful if he could also fetch the mighty glyptodon, the terrible dinotherium, and the stately bandersnatch.
There are few of the old characters of fiction more generally missed than the retired colonel, home from India. He was usually rather portly in figure, though sometimes tall and thin. Always his face was the color of a boiled lobster, and his white moustache and eyebrows bristled furiously. For forty years he had lived exclusively on curries, chutney, and brandy and soda, so his liver was not all it should be.
His temper had not sweetened. He was what you might call irritable.
During forty years he had been lord and master over a regiment of soldiers, and a village of natives, and he had the habit of command.