The Durham daily globe. (Durham, N.C.) 1889-1894, 1891-09-11
DIFFERENCE OF OPINION.

Outstanding of their real meaning.
DIFFERENCE Oh OPINION.
The State Chronicle says:
The. second installment Of MRS
AMELIE RIvEs CHANLER's story "Ac.
cording to ST. JOHN" is out in the Cos
mopolitan. We do not feel called to al.
ter a line of the criticism printed in The
Chronicle when the first installment was
printed. We make one quotation which,
however, ornate or however beautiful
considered as a rhetorical flight, does
not prove that Mrs. CHANLER has i'm
proved by her visit to Paris. Referring
to the widOwer and the heroine, she says
Then follows this quotation:
Then he turned to JEAN, who made a
slight movement like that Of a bird when
n it loves is near, and he drew her into
his arms, bent down his head, and rested
his lips upon hers in one of those long
kisses, which means either ecstacy or
the absent mindedness which has learned
to regard them as a part of a routine.
The girl, alarmed, b~ewildered, yet con.
sciOus OF a new and subtle sense of de-
light, poignant as flame and sweeter than
all her young wondering about love, half
yielded, half withdrew herself in his en-
brace, too confused to realize what was
happening to her in this sudden step
from affection to passion, her whole con
seriousness t%hrobbing within the circle of
a kiss.
While the difference is nothing, and
our opinion on the lines last quoted is not
worth time to read, we shall insist that
According to ST. JOHN" has been pen
ciled by a different mind than that which
traced the lines of the abominable, serotic
and vulgar story called 1.-THE Quick or the
Dead"
The above extract shows not only
beauty of thought-but it portrays, in a
woman's way and with a woman's under
standing, the arts and wiles of men.
There is in the busy, work-a-day world
but little time for sentiment there is not
much of passion laying around an edi-
tors desk there is no time to put ones
feelings in the easy chair at home where
a wife devoted or children prattling make
JOY complete-and surely there is no room
for that imagination which the first thrill
Of hallowed love does bring.
AMELIE R1vEs has only portrayed the
realm contrast with the unreal. AS a
girl and as a wife she knows that men
are deceivers ever; that they feign af-
lection when they think passion that
they live dual lives and that they can do
mechanically that which they do natu-
rally. If the hero was in the business of
flirting; of pretending of killing time
by trifing-then the kiss which the girl
received was a mechanical affair; space
matter as the editor might say. If he
were a really devoted lover her the same
long kiss" which the fair authoress de-
scribes and has doubtless experienced
was sacred and the heart found in it a
weird response-found some satisfac-
tion in that supreme moment.
To the pure all things are pure, it hath
been said and in this last story of the
Virginia authoress, she has filtered the
rot and vulgar slush which permeated
ohlCI IOAtClu SGOIN.
HUGO said, and doubtless well, that
marriage was a mournful eclipse of bril-
In the married state where MRS.
CHANDLER lives and where AMELIA
RIvEs no more forever dwells, that pas
sion of love which was pure-burns just
as intensely-but with a steady glow.
There is in every human heart that |
germ of love which must some day ripen
and expand and shed its beauty and fra
GRANGE around some other path; there is |
that in nature which will assert itself
and the girl JEAN felt in the kiss that the
hero gaye-well, something that chained
very soul, The description of her
feelings, according to our belief, is chaste,
IS pure-and the beauty of it is not mar
red with the vulgarisms which AMELIA
RIvEs once gave to the world in black
white.
1t may be that her Paris visit has not
helped her or improved her; but certain
t is, she has dressed her characters in
the foot kissing, the groans and
'hudders and the delirium tremens of
are missing. As a wife, the
gifted woman has doubtless found that
Ter applause awaits her in dresses not
abbreviated; in language which is chaste
md in propositions which are not i'm
and which are not vulgar.
LEVER talked about the frontier of
prudence and he allowed some of his
characters to go beyond it; SOLOMON
ang songs which need a cover; LAU-
STERNE wrote things which this
.ge condemns; and FIELDING-rare old !