The Portland daily press., 1874-08-11
Relative Purity of American Society.

George Sand, or in fact almost any French
novels except those of Hugo, which are rath-
er prose epics or rhapsodies than romances,
must be astonished at the uniformity with
which the interest is made to center in social
immortality. A gallant student, coquettish
grsette, debauched nobleman, an intrigu-
ing eountes or, oftenest of all, a rich wife
with one or more lovers-such are the char
acters that appear in endless repetition
throughout the whole body of French fiction
of all grades, from Dudevant down to Paul de
Kock. Now the novel of the nineteenth
century is the best index of the social condi-
ton of any given people. Indeed, it is the
only safe index, for the observation of travel
ers is partial and imperfect and the recitas of
history have reference chiefly to other and,
generally, less important matters. But the
standard novel of the country is the out
growth of the inner life of the people. To
be popular and successful it must be a refec-
tion of society as it is. Like the poetry of
an earlier day it is representative of the
thoughts, feelings and life of the people of
the authors age and country, or else it is ut
terly null and makes no impression. Accord
ingly we judge that French society made lit
tie advance under the first and second en-
pires and that the orgies of the time of Louis
XIV have only given place to a little more
decorous but no less decided form of social
vice. Judged by the same standard, English
society shows high degree. of purity.
Charles Reade is the only reputable writer
who makes marital infidelity or woman's
frailty the basis of fictitious narrative, and he
lacks the steady, general popularity of more
exact delineators of the manners of their
tIDies like Dickens, Thackeray and George
Eliot.
To those who would be glad to believe that,
In freedom from tine vice of licentiousness.
America has at least not fallen behind the
mother country, the Beecher scandal is lit
tie discouraging, let its issue be ever so favor
able to the accused. 1t reveals kind of lax
ity, theoretically and practically, in the mat
ter of the relations of the sexes, among a
class ct people who have been supposed by
the general American public to live on a
higher plane of virtue and goodness than al
~A"So &h OhO CioC III UuC WOIlu. IlyUlOuIu
church would have been designated by almost
any rejecting person as the very stronghold
OF American morality-the place where the
noblest virtues found their most sincere and
eloquent expression, and where intelligent
goodness lived its most intense and vigorous
life. On the platform OF his church the Ply
mouth pastor shone like a star, radiating
hope, charity, peace and comfort, while all
his countrymen exulted in the genial warmth
and light that emanated from him. Now it
appears that, at best, questionable practices
and an easy federation of wrong have OBJ
tanned foothold among some of the most
prominent of Mr. Beecher's congregation
and among the members of the literary and
reformatory coterie affiliated with them. let
the pastor come out from his trials as white
as he may and as spotless as he is still. with
good reason, believed to be by majority of
the American people, and the affair is still the
most monstrous scandal that ever poisoned
the moral atmosphere of the country.
There are people with strong tendency TO
pessimsm who will eagerly conclude from
this untoward series of events in an Amer.
can city, that vice has begun to undermine
and pollute American as it has continental
society. We shall not be long in waiting for
declarations that America has failed to keen
her early promise in this respect, too. and
that the wild license of the restoration of the
Stuarts or the reign of the last of the Span
ish Bourbons is already repeated on this side
of the Atlantic. Under such circumstances
it is consoling to be able to point to the fact
that no instance can be cited where the NOR
ais OF country have been thoroughly pois-
oned, without the transmission of the virps
TO the literature, and especially to its poetry
and fiction. There are, as yet, no signs of
moral decay in. American literature. The
stream OF influence issuing from it is still
pure and sweet. The fiction which is true
reflection of average American society is a
mirror of virtue. The dime novel which
with us, is the type of the lowest class of
romance, commonly owes its deleterious in
fuence rather to its extravagant, improbable
ard sensational incidents, and the unreal life
it depicts, than to any direct pandering TO a
pruiient fancy. We are safe in concudino
then, that though licentiousness exists and is
widely prevalent in America, it has not at
tanned the monstrous growth which charact-
erizeo society generally not many decades ago
and which still characterlzes that ot Son,o
European countries Let the BROOKLYN scan-
dai be as nasrant as it will, many wears must
pass before American womanhood coosoa 49,
be generally pure, and before chast;t,, !,
comes jest, as it is where the moral tom
a people has been permanently lowered.
AND now ex-Representative and ex-senator
Richardson of Illinois, always a Democrat
now Democrat, and always to be a Demo-
crat, denounces the Democratic State Com /
mittee for setting forth a platform for the
party in that state. To say in few words
what tue illustrious fossil says in many, the