The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1896-10-31
PURER LITERATURE.

There is a curious morbid tendency
in the books of the present day. We
have healthy literature and we have
very unhealthy literature. Sometimes
we find intellectual giants falling into
the fad of the day, dropping into the
morbid instead of the healthy. This
was the case when Hardy wrote Jude,
the Obscure Hardy had written many
manly books. His Far from the Mad
ding Crowd and his Trumpet Major"
were delightful idyIs of country life.
These were there drawn, by a master
hand, with the completest command of
the English language, as fine charac-
tiers as should be put before people
for their betterment.
The other day came book into the
office styled March Hares." 1t is a
clever book 1t is a book that so ex-
ceIlent a critic as the "Argonaut," of
San Francisco, commends. With all due
Difference to that excellent publication
it is the duty of this journal TO object.
1t is not question of prudishness. 1t
thing that is thoroughly wrong But
it is question of lowering the moral
tone
There are bad books, any man knows
what they are. There are -insidious
books like the "Kreutzer Sonata"
which should never go into the home
of any decent family. and there are
books like "Madimoiselle Giraud, Ma
femme, which ought to be burned before
they ever reached the public eye, but
with all their evil there are other books
which are far more noxious. They
suggest evil, they excite passion, and
they lead many who read them into
paths they should not follow.
Yet they are clever. So are plays of
similar type. We all know what the
end of Oscar Wilder's carer was-a
prison cell and life long disgrace. Yet
he could write brilliant dialogue and
sharp epigram.
In his play of "An Ideal Husband"
one of the most morbid of the modern
plays, one of the characters says: mo
one should be judged entirely by his
past" Yet how often we do so and
damn man or woman who having
gone through the fire has barred the
true lesson of human life. Take again
such quotations as the following: "a
cigarette is a perfect type of perfect
pleasure. 1t leaves you unsatisfied,"
or once more, Morality is the attitude
we adopt against people we don't like, -
and Life is never poor" and lastly
"A good woman is pitiless through her
perfection"
Everyone of the quotations are ex-
cellent, but they are linked with so
much that is bad and the whole tenden- !
cy of the moral tour of the play is so
bad that a wise community would con-
denim it.
The tendency OF the modern esthetic |
novel and of the esthetic play is to evil. |
There are great writer's at the pres
ent day, and there are great writer's in
the past. Let the resent generation
read and appreciate Scott, Thackery,
Dickens, Maryatt, Mrs. Gaskell, Mrs
Oliphant, Charles Kingsley and his
brother Henry, who was only eclipsed
by the greater reknown of Charles.
Let them take up the healthy works of
such men of the present day as KEEP
ling, Bret Harte, Stanley, Weyman,
Anthony Hope, Mark Twain, Professor
Ebors, Maehrtens and Daudet. But also
let them shun the vicious stuff which
comes from too prolific press. To
read the works of great minds is a
continual happiness. The brilliant
thoughts of those. who have had bril-
liant ideas. live forever in the human
mind, and the humber human mind is
happy in its inheritance of great ideas
and noble truths put it into language
that makes them household words !
What literature should be is summed |
up in the words of Otway-"Purity and |
truth, Eternal joy and ever lasting /
love-"