The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1877-05-23
MISCELLANY.
sESsATiox RoMAScks.
BY THE REV. MORGAN DIX.


A glance at the plots of some Of the most
popular novels Of the day show little but crud-
tiles and follies. Here is a woman for instance,
who, married To one man, loves another, and
is ready to go all lengths for his 81 Ike who
falls dead faint on his declining to take adj
vantage Of her abominable weakness, and
then goes into consumption, of which she
dies, bespeaking the tender interest of the
reader for her sorrow in the want of SYM
patby, the real niseries of her life being c..ly;.
those that she has made for herself. Here a.
gain is the story Of a girl who engaged herself
TO three men at once, and for whom we are
expected 10 feel lively compassion, the auth
Dress artfully concealing the leyity and dislo
atty Of such character. Or here, once more,
l. young woman who goes to visit a friend,
AID deliberately steals away from her the
man to whom she is engaged and the force
of the book is thrown into the effort to make
Us take sides with this raider into the quiet
home and ga against the lady like, high rin-
cipled girl thus robbed Of her happiness and
her hope. The reader is always made to side
with the wrong one nd 20 against the right,
to pallate crime, to admire weak and iiabby
characters who have neither strength of will
nor moral responsibility, nor honest purpose.
A writer in the Church QurterIy Rsoieso
says We hardly ever meet any characters
with whom. as the old phrase puts II, we could
fall in love on the contrary, we are shocked,
disgusted and repealed. If the characters Of
almost any modern novel were seen advancing
In procession rs living creatures to spend the
day with one who had already met them In
literature, the threatened victim would be
certain to take refuge in precipitate fight"
A, for the men, they are generally Of a low
type animal. often brutal, with little con-.
science aud no religion horrid cads yet set
forth as specimens Of manly beauty, made at
traciive. proposed as the typical heroes of
modern social life. As for the women, they
are bold as BRASS free in their manuers reck-
less in behavior, scornful of the proprieties of
life kind of social marauders and freeboot-
ers, caring not for the rights Of others, re-
speeding no relationship, devoid Of the sense
of dignity or honor, mere self-willed animals
If SINGLE aiming at captivating other women's
husbands or sweethearts if welded, flirting
freely with every one about them. Look next
at the plot lit is what might be expected
from the characters u mess of false senti.
ment, guilty passion, scandals. intrigues, con-
spiracies supplanlings Of each other and geu-
eral diabolism /; the design apparently being
to see how interesting sinners against decency
and shame can be made to look, and what zest
can be infused into the anatomizing of puri-
ent passion. The story almost always turns
on illicit love of some description on other.
about which, though God and nature set on
ne to throw false glamor Of sympathetic
septimentalism, a wretched stage-fire of rose
colored light. so that the weak are misled, and
even the thoughtful are blinded to the moral
conception thus glazed over and covered up.
AS for the result of all this, it is unfor-
tunately too plain most evident in the man-
ners Of the Young wome, Of the period.
There can be no doubt that the standard OF
womanhood is declining and that the grace
of the fashion of the loyeliest thing the Lord
ever made Is in danger Of whitening away.
How could it be otherwise? Girls can III no
way be more certainly destroyed than by CIV
ing them false idea Of life by peryerting
their moral sense by viewing web Of un-
reality about them; by taking from them the
right idea Of duty, loyalty and honor by
making them see everything in a false light
till they are filled with fantastic notions and
have lost the habit of simplicity and sincerity
With such models as these before them, and
with no one to tell them what abominable
Characters they are il is natural that they
should initiate what they have learned to adj
miie and that when they come to act their
part IN life, they do rs the light women do IN
their favorite stories. Don Quixote became
clazed with his books Of clivalry he read Of
knights and ladies, Of giants and enchanters.
Of magic and adventures, till lie thought it
was all real, seeming nothing any longer as it
was but through the mist Of his disordered
wits. And we solemnly believe and do testify
that somewhat Of this sort is going on to-
| day. There are numbers 10 whose case his
cory runs on with the certainty Of chemical
experiment they live in an unreal world ;
they are absorbed in the doings of frstian