Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 37, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 April 1905 — DEATH OF JULES VERNE. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

DEATH OF JULES VERNE.

Fainoiis French Writer of Fiction Was a True Prophet. Jules Verne died recently in the midst of a generation that scarcely knows him. As a novelist, once of world wide popularity, he had outlived his day and his fame. Because the marvels that his Inventive brain conceived and which fired the popular imagination thirty years ago have become everyday commonplace. “Around the World In Eighty Days” appealed powerfully to the public la 1872 because of its monstrous improbability. But now that tue globe may be Wre led- in sixty days or less without particular burry, the romance has died out of it as the dew-spark)es die In the full light of day. “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea” forecast -the submarine boat which lias become a. prosaic reality.

The dirigible balloon tins not yet come under the complete control that his Imagination gave It, yet It has been removed from the realm of romance to that of science. He was a great master of historical romance, though the history wns before him, not behind him. His was true prophetic vision, and It was his misfortune to have seen his once delicious dreams merge into dull reality. Jules Verne, perhaps more than any other literary figure, marks the transition Into the world's most wonderful period. So swiftly has his wild fiction changed Into more wonderful fact that he was left as a forlorn milestone that Is passed. He was only a story teller. Bnt who

can doubt that his thrilling tales had tremendous psychic effect and imparted the spark of Inspiration to calmer minds of mechanical genius? Even In the most material things dreams must go ahead of accomplishment. It is only the dreamers of un-heard-of things .who point out each step of human progress. But for Imagination that dares to explore the untrod depths of mystery ahead, all advancement would cease. The world needs its bold dreamers, with their far-flying fancies, as much as it needs the hard-headed, hardhanded ones who can catch thes* flying fancies and hitch them to the car of material progress. It can hardly he successfully denied that the amazing inventive genius of the present period is largely due to the fact that tlie youthful minds of the civilized world a third of a century ago were awakened to vist possibilities and quickened into marvelous effort by tlie wild dreams of Jules Verne. The old man had long been blind and dying. He was that most forlorn of all human creatures, the prophet who has outlived the romance of his prophecies. He was like an old pioneer blockhouse that has been hemmed in by a hustling city. He was all but forgotten, while unromantic enterprise lias caught his dreams and Is turning them Inside out for the sake of their golden lining.—Kansas City World.

JULES VERNE.