Elmore bulletin. [volume] (Rocky Bar, Idaho) 1889-1906, 1890-03-15
LITERARY SUCCESS.
fhe AnEl"-ssson Race Demands Ab.oiuts
cleanliness In Fiction

Cleanliness Ia Fiction.
There was discussion at the Authors
club the other night on that eyeren.
thralling topic: The Power of tho
Soung Person in Anglo-Saxon Liter.
atitre, and the usual outburst ON the
part Of the malcontcnts about the auerr
prnaery OF the laws that govern English
hcnon' permitting free use OF battle.
murder and sudden death. OF ruptnrcs OF
all the commandments save one. and
the stern prohibition OF any reference 20
the seventh command, though a dealt
WIN force that produced more dramat.
lc episod"s than all the rest OF the pas
sions put together There was tho usual
seornial talk about puritanism and
pr"ri"ht prudery One hot-headed
young man declared that he would not
chaie against the restrictions were the
Anglo-Saxons in deed as we'll as word a
more moral people than the French or
the Russians, hut that he denied tba,
they were, An alderman, who had been
az through the period OF kicking against
the pricks and of final submission. in
sisted that Anglo-Saxon literature had
not suffered because OF It's Limitations
and on the whole was stronger and hot.
than the French. "A publisher here In
New York, he declared. showed me- bis
books the other day to prove TO me that
the greater part OF his fortune of some
thing like s!,0O0.OO had been made by
the sale of sets of Dickens works at sIa
Whatever statistics you may ret from
librarians he said to me, never balieye
but that Dickens novels sell better than
those OF any man that ever lived, aud to-
hay sell better than the novels of the
most successful author alive And.
continued the speaker. ''you can draw a
ladys cambric handkerchief through
every page Dickens ever panned, and Il
viii come out without smirch upon IL.
This was followed by many other in.
stances which went 20 prove that the
Anglo-Saxon absolutely demanded a
rlcan literature in fiction, and also that
he lost very little by It, Thackerny
cried against the restraint sometimes
but no one feels that his novels are the
worse for II. Stevenson rails in private
at times but he manages to create the
the strongest stories by any living au.
thor OF to-day while ignoring the passion
Of love almost altogether Among other
proofs OF the sort was advanced the sue.
r"ss OF Robert Bonner who has made
millions out Of perfectly clean family
story paper. A friend OF his told about
honncr's touchstone, which he applied
To all literature submitted to him, and
through the accuracy and efficacy Of
which he has made his fortune. when
began The Ledger, said bonner 10 his
friend one day. II imagined an old
lady up in Nestchestcr County who has
three daughters, one twenty. one fifteen
and tho other twelve. Then sawthcm
come home from prayer-meeting about
Aao Wednesday evening. and. not being
quite ready To go to bed, the mother
picked mp The Ledger to read a story To
her daughters. fully determine that
there should bc nothing in that story
that She would hesitate 10 read out loud
10 those girls while the father sat in the
room, and whenever a manuscript has
come 10 me since | had always tested II
by the old lady in Westchester. and II
she thought she could read ii 20 the girls
! usually accepted It; otherwise Il was
returned promptly to tho author" The
authors agreed that the success OF The
century has been due TO Just such tac
ties. And they also agreed that. though
certain erotic writers might have fleet
ing success, To achieve lasting popular
iiY IN this century's fiction II II neccs. /
sary 10 ignore as far as possible any ref. /
erence 10 certain subject. BROOKLYN /
Eagle