The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1895-11-16
not concern itself with the more SCI

Il
ious facts Of life.
''This contention is put forward IN
good faith and with good intention.
Those who urge it are alarmed land
perhaps very properly alarmed at GER
tain tendencies of certain noyelists to
discuss subjects that have not hitherto
been considered proper TO fiction They
want fiction and the drama to be very
| sweet and clean and wholesome. and
they are terrified by the disposition it
shows in some quarters TO become I'M
| clean and impure. a modern school,
says 81 well-known critic. has turned
TO account all the most refined methods
| of breaking the ten commandments
Now, God forbid that / should stand
here as an apologiSt for what George
Eliot calls the AIabille walks and
shows of fiction But / want to stand
here for the twin angels of freedom and
truth. 1 want 20 plead for complete
liberty Of conscience in fiction and the
drama.
Perhaps those who read fiction and
sometimes go TO the theater think that
recent novels and plays make it pretty
clear that we allow them liberty enough
already. And it is certainly true that
some plays and novels have of late
shown not only liberty but license. 1t
is true that at the present moment the
novelist or dramatist without a con-
science is a moral Anarchist, armed
with dynamite that ought to be called
damnation. There is, perhaps, no mis-
chief he might not do But there is
disposition among the public 10 exag-
gerate most hideously the mischief that
is actually done.
1T is no part of duty. however, to de-
fend the morality of any book of mine.
But l stand here to defend the morality
Of all books that have ever been penned
against the morality of one unwritten
book-and that is the book of life. A
great French novelist, BalZac, says:
People speak of the immortality of GER
tain books; but here is a horrible. foul
and corrupt book, always open and
never to be shut: the great book of the
world We can read it in the reports
of the newspapers; we can see it in the
streets, we can see it in the police
courts. What is the use of sweeping
your books clean Of all sin while the
world is full of it? Do you think that
10 int
up for you fancy picture of an ex-
istence without fault that life is going
to copy it? Let me give you an illus
tration:
I'm our English lake country some
body has set up foolish tower, which
overlooks Windermere by four stained
glass windows. one in each of its four
walls. Look out ait the first and every
thing is green and all the scene below
is like spring; look out at the second
and it is like summer; the third and
it is yellow like autumn; the fourth
and it is white like winter. 1t is an
innocent folly enough and il you are
content with that stained-glass fiction. |
if it amuses You and you are happy in |
your amusement, so be it. Only if you
expect literature TO have anything to
do with life, if you want it to speak to
you in your dark hours, just break to
pieces the foolish and deceptive me-
dunn that givesfalse color to the world
"And so say, the dangers of life are
worse than the dangers of books. ont
run away from the one while you are
to expose yourself to the
other. Don't shut your eyes on the
street and open them only in the Ii
brary. Don't be vexed with the novel
ist who tells you that for you, for your
sons, for your daughters, the dangers
Of life lie in wait. If novels are TO
be forces for good in the world, let them
be free to depict it, however ugly and
painful and even terrible the picture
may sometimes be-