The herald., 1894-10-28


boring men out of work can ride up and
down for nothing while looking for 6
job. But docs it help that doctrine any
to call it scientific, or to say it is work
ing toward the goal OF human better
mentp Not whit, and the best thing
our sociological friends can do 10 to gel
over, as soon as possible, their nervous
meas about what they may be called and
in what department they bslcug, and
bend all their efforts TO making theii
opinions ami their teachings clear, veri-
fable, and in accoro with human nature
as it is. Let them do this aud the world
will find the right name for them fast
enough. So it will, we may add, if tbsf
do not do it.
Two short years ago Whittier, who,
without realizing it, was 30 much
nearer the end than Holmes, paid TO the
latter one OF the tendersst tributes ever
penned. How touching this cloaing
lines-lines that no man ever writes who
| has not himself grown on the spiritual
side-the only way man ever grows
who would touch the finer forces OF hu-
man life.
"The hour draws mar. howe'er delayed and
late
When ut the eternal gate
We leave the words and works we call our
own,
And lift void hands alone
For love to fill. Our max sdness Of soul
Brings to that gate no TOLL
(iitless we come to Him. who all things s ives.
And live because He lives"
Not one OF the famous group, OF whom
Holmes was the last to leave us, who
did not cling to conscience and charac
ter, and cared little for creed. Every
one was a liberal in religious thought,
though reared in the very home OF the
Puritan. Emerson pinned his faith to
tho gospel of man.
"one ruddy drop OF manly blood
The surging sea outweigh"
~.
An American sdmirer OF the English
poet Morris recently dined with him
and was shocked to see his host eat
liver and bacon. But surely an Amer-
can could not have forgotten that Wads-
worth, even. found his delicate muse
vastly stimulated by heavy meals in nd
dition to ordinary daily fare. Oscar
Wilde is the only Englishman who
dimes on lily-and he only in public.
By the way, Oscar seems to be going the
way of SO many modern English society
and story writers. He is rapidly be.
| coming Extensively indelicste in his
| greed to cay striking smart things.
Anthony Hope" Hawkins, London's
new literary favorite. is q man of thirty.
one, with long. thin face devoid of
beard or mustasche. HE lips are close
shut snd his expression ascetic. Al
| though hfs fame in the world of readers
OF romance dstea only from the recent
publication of the Professor OF Zsnda,
he gave his first novel, A Man OF Work,
to the world four years ago. He is q
London lawyer and an Oxford honor
man.
Following out the thought suggested
elsewhere as to certain shady" ten
dency among recent English authors,
one is led to inquire if the dear, clean
old-fashioned Engliah novel is out of
vogue? The man with the retreating
forehead is in the best of them, and
from the miss Brown" of Vernon Lee
to Esther Waters" there has been a
plain though natural descent. 1t is not
denied that the latter book ia frank and
coarse, while so many others are subtle
in expression and worse in fact and ef-
feot. This discussion is now at its
height over George Meredith's last book
an author who at last has assembled
public" es one critic puts it. and has
compelled the British matron and
chapsron to look at ths facts.
Now, it is quite just and safe and
even lovely to believe and insist th at
one may be sinner and yet bs tolerat-
ed and even loved and respeotsd-ior
great excellence otherwise. That book
is not immoral. therefore, which tells of
ain in a character. This sin thus shown
can be hated, or it can be partly ex-
planned away, in a word, it gives the
reader chance TO waigh and consider.
This ia what morality teaches, this ia
what the master taught. To fully un.
derstsnd that the wages of ain is death
the facts are pertinent and profitable.
But the treating OF sin in society az an
incident to be accorded occasional and
incidental consideration, is q very diff
ferent thing from making it theme
the familiar handling of human weak
nesses that not only does not tend to
their condemnation, but actually gives
them e place as factors, it were not
stern duty to put out of all liberation.
Some one has said of the tendency of
some writer's of modern fiction, that it
is serious attempt to prove that God "a
is synonymous with mans impulses, !"
and that therefore human law ought to
De. Ii there ever was palmer plea for
license than this it has escaped our
notice. Aminta did not love Lord Or
mont, and so. in the end, she went to
Switzerland with Weyburn, where, cali
ing themselves man and wife, they are
left to live as happily ever afterward as
may be.
Here is the new gospel:
LAWS are necessary instruments OF
the ajority. but when they grind the
sane human being to dust for their
maintenance, their enthronemsnt is the
rule OF the savage's old deity, shifting
blood-sacrifce. There cannot be based
| society upon such conditions. An inn
notation OF the naturally constituted
individual arrests the general expansion
to which we stop, decivilizes more, and
is more impious to the God in man
than temporary revelriss OF license
that nature soon checks"
x+x
In The Egoist. in most wa7s, the
| greatest OF George Meredith's books,
the tendency was plainly towards what
was reached in his last one. To us it is
something to be utterly deprecated. It
is appalling that English story telling
has come to this great danger. We can
not help feeling that late English women
writer's are largely responsible for it oil.
They have insisted on portraying vice
and giving ustheir views of it. To make
man responsible for Southey's sins they