Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1895-07-02

cure. This latest article Is not wholly re.
moved from these suspicious. Most will
feel compelled at the outset, however, to
agree with him that literature and art
have become more pathological of late
years" but will hardly concur with him
as to Wagner's mental confusion and
erotomania" and some will differ from
his wholly contemptuous view of Ibsen.
What seems especially to have impelled
Dr. Nordau to the writing of this article
was desire to combat the conclusions OF
the Italian scholar, Ferrero; that while
numerous fashionable books and works
of art are productions of Bedlam, they are
a safety valve to what would otherwise be
more serious abnormal disturbances. DIR.
Nordau contends that instead of being
vaccination against the abnormal, more
particularly the morbid and mystical,
such writings are direct incubation. He
believes every dominant inclination is
awakened and monstrously developed by
this sort of reading" Common sense
bears out this assertion. Few but can
recall instances illustrative Of this. Con-
tinuing he says: 1T should be remem-
bered that every human mind contains
every species of alteration and delirium
in the germ. In frenzy, even when most
violently developed, nothing new Is pres
emit to the accustomed domain of thought
Only change of proportion and relation
occur. The normal equilibrium between
the various nerve centres is suspended.
One faculty, for instance motor impulse,
is strengthened the Other, such as memory
or inhibition becomes weakened. Ac
cording to this, then, insanity is an
augmentation Of one cerebral function,
or the diminution of another +
Fiction exercises powerful and an
unremitting suggestive influence which
manner Of thought and action of the
reader" 1t will be difficult to controvert
these positions nor can it be gainsaid
that 1.-THE individual, unable to control
Or correct by personal experience the posi-
tive affirmations and communications of
the poet Tor other writer draws
his conceptions of life from these works !"
Granting all these assertions 1t is difficult
to see. how, short of censorship of print
ing these difficulties can be avoided and
of course no such drastic measure Is pos
sible or to be thought Of. People have
arrived at the condition where they feel
perfectly free to choose what they shall
read, that is provided they have the time
or disposition to Gull from the mass just
what suits their fancy. As usually &C.
.,urs they have confused liberty and license
and do not use their own Judgment in
selecting while chatting against any re-
strictions others may seek to impose.
They gorge themselves and the keen relish
of the bread and meats that comes with
honest hunger Is gone and so they resort
to the cocktail and pepper sauce. DR..
Nordau has noticed what all who have
given the matter moments attention
must have noticed, that morbid produc-
lions in literature are resorted to for
appetizers and again because they are the
fashion, for literary gluttony is another
slave to fashion and the exposure of an
Oscar Wilde now and then does not lessen
the servility.
One ingredient of the doctors prescrip-
ton is to eliminate an idea cleverly
created by the degsnerates viz, that they
possessed Of finer and superior organiza-
lions They captivate many also with
the belief that they afford escape from
the bonds and conventionalities of
stupid and hypocritical majority. "Not a
word of this is true. says DR.. Nordau,
and In the main be Is right. A mo-
ment's reflection upon the exploded isrns,
the fads that In the days of their raging
are called cults" and in the days of their
DOWNFALL which is inevitable, are known
as asininities ought to demonstrate the
truth Of this. But the morbid moth
whose wings have been singed in the ex-
posture of one 'osophy fits to another to
repeat the process and the doctors pre-
scription is inadequate. He would have
the newspapers and magazines eschew
these degenerates and cease to give them
notoriety. Heseyidently doesn't consider
that these publications reflect the tastes of
their readers, that those whose readers are
not themselves degenerates cleave to the
wholesome, while those whose readers are
most susceptible to the influence Of the
degenerate cater to these susceptibilities
and encourage them. DR.. Nordau has
pointed out in striking manner very
grave danger but in essaying to prescribe a
cure he has not succeeded He has, how
ever, stimulated agitation of the question
and the only hone seems to lie throt1 oh