The Portland daily press., 1880-10-08
Morality in Fiction.

The monotony of life in the central streets
of any great modern city, but especially in
those of London, where every emotion in
tended to be derived by men from the sight of
nature, or the sense of art, is forbidden for
ever. leaves the craving of the heart for SIM
cere. yet changeful interest, to be fed from one
source only Under natural conditions, the
degree of mental excitement necessary to bod
lily health is provided by the course OF the sea-
sons and the various skill and fortune of asri-
culture. In the country, every morning of
the year br ngs with il new aspect of spring.
ing or fading nature; a new duty to be fulfilled
upon earth, and a new promise or warning in
heaven. No day is without its innocent hope
its special prudence, its kindly gift, and its
sublime danger; and in every process of wise
husbandry, and every effort of contendiDg or
remedial courage, the wholesome passions,
pride, and bodily power, of the laborer are ex-
cited and exerted in happiest unison. The
companionship of domestic, the care of service
able animals, soften and enlarge his life with
lowly charities, and discipline him in familiar
VISIONS and unboasted fortitudes, while the
divine laws of seed-time which cannot be re-
called, harvest which cannot be hastened, and
Winter in which no man can work, compel
the impatiences and coveting of his heart into
labor too submissive TO be anxious, and rest
too sweet to be wanton. What thought can
enough comprehend the contrast between
such life, and that in streets where Summer
and Winter are only alterations of heat and
cold; where snow never fell white. nor SUM-
shine clear; where the ground is only pave
and. clr ic ft.o,,
| roof of all arcade; where the utmost power of
storm is to choke the cutters, and the finest
| ma gic of Spring to change mud into dust;
| w,lere-chief and most fatal difference in
| State-there is no interest of occupation for
any of the inhabitants but the routine of coun-
| ter or desk within doors, and the effort to pass
| each other without collision outside; SO that
| from morning to evening the only possible va
ration of the monotony OF the hours, and
| tightening of the penalty of existence, must be
some kind of mischief, limited, unless by more
| than ordinary godsend of fatality, 70 the fall
| of horse or the Sitting of pocket. L said
| that under these laws of inanition the craving
| of the human heart for some kind of excite
ment could be supplied from one source only.
| 1t might have been thought by any other than
| sternIy tentative philosopher that the denial
! of their natural food to human feelings would
| have provoked a reactionary desire for it and
that the dreariness of the street would have
been gilded by dreams Of pastoral felicity. Ex-
| ,
the thoroughly trained Londoner can enjoy no
| other excitement than that to which he has
been accustomed, but asks for that in continu-
| ally more ardent or NOR. virulent concentra-
ton; and the ultimate power of fiction 10 en-
tertan him is by varying to his fancy the
modes, and defining for his dullness the hor-
rors of death. In the single novel OF BLEAK
House" there are nine deaths (or left for dea, h
in the drop scene) carefully wrought out CT led
up to, either by way of pleasing surprise, as
! the baby's at the brickmakers, CT finished in
their threa,enngs and sufferings, with as
much enjoyment as can be contrived in the
anticipation, and as much pathology as can be
concentrated in the description. Under the
following varieties of method; One by assas sim
alton, Mr.. Tulkinghorn; one by starvation,
with phthisls, joe one by chagrin, Richard
one by sorrow, Lady Dedlock's lover; one by
remorse, Lady Dedlock; one by insanity, Miss
Flites one by paralysis, Sir Leicester; besides
the baby, by fever, and lively young FIR ncI
woman left to be hanged. And all this OBJ
serve. not in a tragic, adventurous, or military
story, but merely as the further enlivenment
of narrative intended to be amusing, and as
properly representative ave rage of the stats.
tics of civilian morality in the centre of London
John Ruskin, in Nineteenth Century.