Woodville Republican. (Woodville, Miss.) 185?-current, 1889-06-29
LIE MonERN YOU'RE.


Creature OF LEttIe Feeling and Few
Deep Thoughts.
Frankly says Robert Buchanan in
the Universal Review, II do not know
what the modern young man is coming
to- The young man Of my own early
experience was feather-headed but hon
est impulsive and uninstructed but
sympathetic and occasionally studious;
though his faults were many, lack oil
conviction was certainly not one ol
them. He dreamed wildly of fame, Of
fair women, of beautiful books; and
when heread the masters, he despaired.
A great thought, even fine phrase,
stirred him like trumpet. In Bohe-
mia he had heard the bird-lilIe cry ol
Mimi; in the forest OF Arden he had
roamed with Rosalind. For him, in the
light-heartedness OF his youth, ths
world was an enchanted dwelling-place.
The gods remained, with God above
them. The heaven OF his literary in.
fancy lay around him. Out in the dark
ened streets he met the sunny smile oI
Dickens, and down among the English
lanes he listened to the nightingales o.
Keats and Tennyson.
"But now, with the passing of one
brief generation, the world has changed,
the youth who was poet and dream
er has departed, and the modern young
man has arisen to take his place A
saturnine young man, young nan
who has never dreamed dream OF
been a child, a young man whose
days have been Swallowed by the
upas tree of modern psssimism,
and who is born to the heritage o
flash cinicism and cheap science, OF
literature which is less literature
than criticism run to seed Though
varied in the species, he is invar
liable in the type, which include:
the whole range OF modern charac
ter, from the young man of culture
expressed in the elegant humane
ties of Henry James and Marion Craw
ford, down to the bank holiday young
man of no culture, The modern young
man, whether with or without educa
ton, has no religion and no enthusiasm
Nourished in the new creed of Realism
and Art pour Art, he is ready to take
Love 'as subject and lcall it crue
enigma. Even the insufferable Gautiei
was superior to all this; he was not too
clever to live, not overfull OF insight TO
write. But the modern young mar
is the very paradox of pres
cienco and nescience of instruc
ton arAd incapacity He writes books
which are dead books from the birth
he formu,ates criticism, which are la.
boriOus self dissections, indecent ex
posures of the infinitely trivial, he
paints, he composes, he tolls and moils
and all to no avail.
For the faith which is life, and the
life which is reverence and enthusiasm
have been denied to him. The sun ha.
gone out above him, and the earth is
arid dust beneath him. He has scarce.
ly heard of Bohemia, he is utterly in.
credulous of Arden, and he is aware
with all his eyes, not of Mimi or o.
Rosalind, but of Sidonic Risler ant
Madame Bovary He has looked dowr
Vesuvius, out of his very cradle. Ir
Boston hs has measured Shakespeare
and Dickens, and found the giants want.
ing; in France he has talked the argot
of IL Assommoir' over the grave
of Hugo; even in free Scandinavia he
has discovered Zola with suffering
style and two wooden legs and made a
totemgod Of Ibsen; while here in Eng
land he threatens Turner, the painter,
and has practically Gas he thinks de-
molished the gospel OF poetical sentl,
ment and yet curiously enough, he has
done nothing, he has given us nothing;
for he is nothing"