Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 170, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 July 1913 — OMNIPRESENT. [ARTICLE]

OMNIPRESENT.

We have learned to bear the speeding motor car of the erossways and have grown used to chug, chug, as it brings the odors of the nether world to our sweet, leafy country roads, says a well known writer in fiertbners; but it is with a certain dismay that we realise how fully the last retreat of a quiet mind, literature, has been invaded by the macht Hh I can think of few. recent Ameri- ? ana tales where it has not been a thief feature. W* can dodge it upon the highway; but who can dodge M In the magaetaesT The escaping vttHan ness it only to be overtaken by the yietorioua here in one of better make; the eloping lovers find it indispensable; philanthropy disdains any other vehicle for swift rescue of suitering; birth and death seem unworthy, and burglary unsuccessful unless associated with It; and. la the matter of adventure, whether 11 dashes off the cliff into the sea, or wrecked by striking miners, serves as a barricade for the besieged capitalist, it has no rival. We find it pictured on every spot et earth from desert sand to mountain height, and Kipling's “They" ■bows it running betwen the visible world and the invisible,. It has dimmed the'glory of the football tale; tarnished the splendor of the yachting romance, and made- the bicycle, amorous or adventureous a thing of the past. As England moves through Shakespeare's historic plays, dim hero of the whole, represented now by Riehard, now by John, now by Henry, so that, automobile, moves through our fiction, the true hero, mere man being introduced chiefly to manage its exits and its entrances. The thing beoomes alive; pleased fancy plays with It as a cat with a feather, imagining it sentiment With the good auto we become heroic and perform wonderful deeds of prowess; with the bad outo w* are frankly vUlkuaous and add murder to our other ortßMs; breathlessly w* speed with the detective auto, the very Sherlock Holmes of manufactured things, in ferseting out crime. In fine, absorbed all known motifs, andfno novel or story eua go without its! motor car.