The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1892-08-11
IS THIS NEW ENGLAND?

In a very interesting review Of the
late Francis Saltus' complete works,
Walter Blackburn Harte, writing in
the Ne,c England Magazine under the
title of In Corner at Dodsley's," ad-
vances some ideas so variant from those
which we have been accustomed to link
with New England thought, that we
are inclined to question whether Mr..
Harte is merely ahead of his time, or on
the wrong track altogether.
For instance, Mr.. Harte is moved by
the frankness of Mr.. Saltus' work to re-
mark:
According to the generally accepted
standards OF morality and orthodoxy, the
bulk OF Saltus' poetical works deserve to
be burned by the common hangman for
impiety and impurity but, although we
have no quarrel with morality, 1T must
be understood that we cannot have all
literature degraded to the level of Sun
day school books there is some literature
intended for students and lovers OF lit
erature, and not being written for the
masses, it should be allowed to escape the
fatal gauge of Mrs. Grundy.
Morality will doubtless be pleased to
escape quarrel with Mr.. Harte, if that
be possible. Common sense would have
no quarrel with him, either, if he mere
ly means that the Sunday school book is
below the intellectual level Of the cul-
tured man. But Mr.. Harte means to
leave no doubt that he means something
more that this. In glorification Of the
Pagan ideals, character and artistic
creeds further on, he says:
BY the word pagan" in this connec-
ton is meant simply that they antedated
the farce we call Christianity, and in
place Of it had "a number of farces little
more grotesque. IL is not impossible
that it will one day be discovered that
this age, too, was pagan. 1t seems strange
to some of us that the ancients should cry
aloud to Jupiter in their hour Of afflic-
tion and praise and believe In succor
that never came. But it was not very
strange. Every dawn and every sunset
thrills one with awe the dullest, coldest
clod feels that this great globe of fire
in the heavens is the beacon OF
eternity while for him there is no to-
morrow. The old world saw its god climb
in the East every day: his light, warm
and kindly, bringing hope and cheer, or
hearts of those who saw It, crept into
every house; it glorified the towers and
domes of the city, and added to the hor-
rors Of the holocaust or battlefield. The
Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks and Ro-
mans had their gods above them, the sun
by day. Co., the ,hdss moon w;,S and star stars by
see; and the worshippers of these
silent, Indifferent and inscrutable deities
walled and wept in vain, sacrificed and
bled before their altars IN vain. We. TOO,
cry to our unseen God from wrecks, floods,
battlefields, sickness, famine, oppression
and fear, but these things and death seem
mystery is the only cure for the ills of
each generation. We know nothing we
hope for all things and we die.
This is prettily written. Either Mr..
Harte is an authoritative evangelist of a
new New England gospel Of negations
or he merely expresses an individual
opinion. We incline to the latter opinion;
and as he further remarks that these
poems = must be accorded high
rank as literature" when he obviously
means that the rank must be accorded
the poems, instead, we further conclude
that he is an inaccurate writer who does
not know the grammar of his own
tongue and ought not to prate of Pagans
till he has learned it.
Nevertheless, grammatical quibbles
aside, it would be interesting to know
Mr.. Harte's assertion of the
rights of passion and the virtues Of pru-
rient literature which has to be pri-
vately printed because it can't be pub
licly, represents the New England of
to-day, and whether it agrees with him
that Christianity Is a farce"