The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-10-20


 writer clearly practices what he breaches. His point of view seems to be that of Grimes the chimney sweep CT, in Charles Kngsley's "Water Ba- bies, "who said that he was not SO dirty that he had to be washing himself all the time. Believing in the theory that dirt is wholesome, he would drive the youthful authors" forth to make mud pies,-or, rather, to dabble in foul gutters, and peer into reeking sewers,-lest, perchance, they might grow fastidious, and fear to soil their hands. But the hydrophobic scribe may reassure himself; the reign of terror that he dreads is not likely to be soon inaugurated. There is little danger that the world will become too clean, morally or physically.
 And is this charge of modern liter- ary prudishness we'll grounded2 Other critics assert that they can detect 6 growing laxity, an increasing tendency toward license of thought and expres- sion. However "undefiled by wit" the fiction of to-day may be, it cannot be complained, in the lace of the crop of "erotic and cratic" novels constant ly springing up, that the purest mor- als are unduly exploited. Certainly there is no foolish modesty, no mawk- ish delicacy, to be found in Miss Laura Daintry's "Eros." Very little is left to the imagination. The love- making is of the most approved and fashionable "tigerish" sort. The very deliYIum treme'as of love, 90 to speak. The heroine has habit of springing upon the hero, and imprinting dozens of burning kisses on his throat, while he, not to be outdone, calculates "Jesusp in moments of emotion, and seizes her by her supple waist with such force as almost to break it. Is this ignorance, or is it depravity? In another book of the same class, mari tai infidelities, and whether they should be condoned or condemned, are discussed in the broadest terms.
 These writers who have rushed into literature, like horde of "young bar barians all at play" have little rever- ence for temple or shrine. They in- wade dark corners, with insolent curiosity, tear the flowers from the altar, blow out the lights, and snatch down the veil from the holy of holies. They announce that there shall he no more mysteries, and their noisy foot steps and unhushed voices echo through that precinct upon which it has been decreed that a great silence must rest. Boorish horse- play is not humor, nor is coarseness vigor, nor blasphemy forcefulness yet the aver age reader is apt to be impressed by violent phrasing and highly -colored metaphors-not realizing that it is all "sound and fury, signifying nothing" The popularity of such literature can- not be denied. To some, whose viti- ated tastes would find purity insuffer- ably devoid of flavor, it is welcome because it speaks familiar language. Others are attracted to it by an igno- rant curiosity regarding the powers that work for evil,-as one might hang over the edge of an abyss and peer into the awful depths below.
 There are some problems no more proper to be preached in fiction than in 8 drawing-room. Ii they are dis cussed by scientific men, it is because some ultimate good to humanity, some further benefcent knowledge is to be reached, mot for the idle pleasure in the subject. But book is not vile simply because it deals with sin; 1t rests with the author whether 1t shall befoul or ennoble the mind that re- ceives it's impressions. Let him meas ure his strength we'll before he at- tempts to cope with such theme for he must be able to grasp it firmly neither crushing it to powder nor let ting 1t slip between his fingers. If he I gloats over horrible things, and reveals to us imaginings that could emanate only from an unclean, unwholesome life,-if he lays his hand upon disease not in healing, but to pluck eway the covering and brutally expose 1t. wounds and sores to the gaze of vulgar curiosity-we know that he is moved by base purpose.
 Purity does not mean a regimen oi weak tea and thin bread and butter nor does virtue necessarily imply 6 low temperature of the vital fluid. Ii modern fiction is an@mic, as it i, asserted, by all means let us revive and strengthen it by an infusion oi new blocd. But let us be sure that this has no fever taint. The bounding pulse and glowing cheek are sometimel the danger signals of disease, rather than the sign-manual of health and strength and 8 wholesome, open-ail life.