River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1885-01-22
MEN OF LETTERS AS PREACHERS.
The Habitual Tendency Of Certain Authors |
MOraliZe

former times the minister of religion
was usually the sole recognized NOR
alist. Here and there scientific NOR
rlists have had considerable influence
upon the moral practice of small
groups of educated men. Both these
classes of moralists we still have with
us, although at present under an
eclipse. Neither the clergy nor those
whom they address are quite clear as
to the bias of theological doctrine pre-
suppose / in all moralizing from the
pulpit. The scientific moralist can
not directly address public so enor-
nous, so ill-educated, so scant of leis-
ure, and so eager for excitement as
the public of modern Europe. Never
theless, mankind continue to have
an appetite for that moral exhortation
which they denounce by rote as dry
and insipid, while consuming it in
great quantities, and with little regard
to quality. They have found new
preachers among the people who write
essays, novels, and poems, who have
long been accustomed to make re-
marks upon life and conduct, but have
been esteemed not very successful in
the condnct of their own lives. By
common consent these gentlemen have
been indicted into the vacant cure of
souls. The literary man has become
the one universal and impressive NOR
alist, so that it is well worth while to
trace the effect of literary modes of
thought upon ethics, as well as the
effect of constant ethical purpose up
on literature.
Our literary moralists have naturally
impaired to modern morals literary
tinge. The most fashionable virtues
are the virtues of the literary spirit.
Thus tolerance is -eminently a
literary virtue; and our age is very
tolerant, tolerant not only in the
domain of thought, but also, if in
less degree, in the domain of action.
Another literary virtue is humor, a
quick and scornful perception of what
is ugly, exaggerated, and insincere.
This virtue has passed from books into
our conscience, has made us feel the
vices that cling to our very virtues,
and has made the best of us almost
weakly shy of avowing their own
goodness. The openness and flexi-
bility of mind, the delicacy in discri-
minating, the patience in hearing all
sides, the indulgent kindness in judging
which, above all other good qualities,
complete finished literary character,
can never indeed be of much account
in popular morality; but they arc
of more account now than they ever
were before. All this, of course, is
due to many causes, such as the social
changes of the last hundred years; but
it is in part due to the literary influence
upon conduct, the influence of such
writer's as Thackeray and Carlyle,
Victor Hugo and George Sand.
On the other hand, some of the most
notable weaknesses of our generation
are literary weaknesses. Morality as
taught by literary men has lost as
much in definiteness as it has gained
in expansion. Being practical, it
should speak forcibly, unless it speaks
clearly. 1t may speak clearly in one
or two ways. 1t may lay down in dog
matte fashion series of short, sharp
rules, apparently without vital con-
nection or ground in reason-rules
which are not to be questioned simply
because the questioner will be pun
ished. Again, it may express the
net result of serious and scientific
thought about the universe and mans
place in it-that is to say, it may be
definite because it is philosophic. Now,
the literary moralist is usually not
definite either in the one way or in the
other. His wisdom flashes out from
time to time in brilliant intuitions, in
the intervals too often emitting no.
thing but unsavory smoke. His
teaching is a series of acute observa-
tions, searching parallels, or moving
pictures. Such teaching exactly suits
the palate of an age too critical for
dogma, too impatient for philosophy;
but it wants unity, it wants consist
ency, it wants force-wants very ILL
supplied by passion of feeling and
glow of imagination. So that when
we read the literary moralist for any
thing beyond literary pleasure we
commonly end in downright bewilder
ment.
Thus every serious reader of Car
lyle's writings must be good deal
perplexed by his presentation of
virtue, now as purity and now as
power. Is the great man always the
good man? In what sense can it be
honestly said that might is rightp
Carlyle nowhere clearly answers these
embarrassing questions, or, at most,
gives us in equally positive terms two
answers which seem to contradict one
another, and are really very difficult
to harmonic. Turn and twist the
matter as we may, the ideas of Calvin
are not the ideas of Goethe, nor can
the modern scholar look upon this
world with the eyes of one of the apos-
ties. Carlyle would no doubt have adj
mitted this; and yet he would have
gone on exhorting us to do the thing
the most angrily and righteously de-
nounced, to close our eyes to facts and
masquerade in the old clothes of the
Cromwellian republic.
Or, listen to Thackeray's perpetual
denunciation of worldliness. On every
other page he exhorts men and women
to marry without much consideration
of ways and means. On every other
page he twits them with their base
greed, with their anxiety to get on,
to make money, and to rise in the
world. He might as well exhort the
wolf to have cubs and not prey for
them. For the stupidest reader who
reflects can see that all this Juggling
and Juggling, all this showing and
scrambiing to get subsistence, comes
from the difficulty of subsisting, and
all the difficulty of subsisting from the
multitude vi those who compete with
us and of those who depend upon us.
How often do men and women bow
the proud neck and silence every gen.
erous beating of the heart in order
that those whom they love and who
will despise them may be spared the
long-suffering and humiliation that
have filled their own lives? All, it is
because so many lives are starved and
shriveled up that here and there few
have space to bloom and spread them
selves in the sun. 1t is the degradation
of most that makes possible the self
respect of some. 1t is the score of mig
CARDS who make possible the one gen.
erous man.
The moralist who declines to face
facts may denounce sentiment, but is
sentimental still. His doctrine. being
sentimental, can be reduced to no
plain or ineligible principle; and as it
does now consist with itself, it would
fain make amends by being angry like
an illogical man or fearful like an IL
logical woman But no tears or ours
es tell so much as lucid indication of
facts. All of us feel the mystery of our
situation, and all would like to have
even the least light thrown upon it.
Merely to show us an enormous spec