The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1898-03-01

E. p. Roe to get from a tale nominalIy
religious minute descriptions Of certain
kinds Of wickedness about which their
curiosity was very great" The New
York Times agrees with the dictum OF
Mr.. Wise, and says of the novel that
"A more constituencies 'pot-boiler' was
never written by a man of talent"
Harper's Weekly dissents and says
that it amounts ito an assault on pub
lie confidence" and adds: 1T is a
question how far such views may be
~extenuated on the ground that they
make it easier for persons who have
not read Quo Vadis, and don't intend
to, to stay on the earth"
Looking in our table drawer yester-
day We found a marked article we had
laid away. Some one had sem it to
us weeks ago perhaps. 1t was taken
from the Helena (Montana) Indepen-
dent. We are glad to find that it is
not an indiscriminate eulogy on "Quo
Vadis," but it is a pungent but brief
criticism of the immoral aspects of an
otherwise capital novel, full of inter-
a part of the penetrating but caustic
criticism, and do SO in the interest Of
public purity and literary decency. 1t
says:
But there are critics who revolt at
the art Of the cesspOOl and readers who
Shudder at the story OF a thousand hOr-
rors told in 800 pages. Critics and read
ers Of this class must regret the great
g achieved by Quo Vadis. =
The latter portion of thes tory evoted
to the conversion Of a Roman aristO-
crat through love for a beautiful girl,
possesses much interest, as wholesome
love affairs always do; but otherwise
the book is devoted to the murderOus
and Infamous.
IF it were necessary part of a lib
eral education hat one shOuld know in
detail the un~thinkable cruelties and I'M
uttterable RIGHTEOUSNESS Of Rome at
tina period, there would be justifica-
ton for the reading of Quo Vadis, but
it is not. To be a great chemist one
does not need to eat all the poisons of
HIS UDC y. ~ VIC an outAiol " oh
Ophidians one does not need to be bit
ten by all the poisonous snakes of the
jungle. Orgies are described in Quo
Vadis with a realism that would ex-
clude The Independent from the Unit
cd States mails"
We approve Of this with all en-
phasis. The Christian aspects of the
story-the intense realism, the ex-
quisite note of patnos running
through much of it, the awful suffer-
| ings of the followers of the Son of
God in the Eternal City," the perfect
resignation and jubilant triumphs in
death of those who were made martyrs
for Jesus, appeal with tremendous in
terest to the Christianized heart and
make it a story of most absorbing
power. The low moral tone of parts
of the novel, the predominating power
Of sin in SO many deliberately pictured
scenes, the RIGHTEOUSNESS and baseness
revealed to the reader of that "lubric
and adulterate age" to quote Dryden,
oiN IIiC CblC lAICl" al WI q
ship Of the line genius with the pen,
adding to all the charm OF a consum-
mate master of description, make "Quo
Vadis" the more dangerous and the
more revolving. We are heartily in
sympathy with a brief, pointed criti-
cism in the last number of the Wake
Forest Student, which we are glad to
find in a periodical edited by the young
men in that excellent institution of
learning. 1t says:
AT this rate there sha soon come
a time when the people of our country
will demand another B~occaccio. Is
Is beauty and vivid description all
there is to be desired in a book? We
think not, n we do not think that
Quo Nadis is the right sort of a book
to put in the hands of our readers and
younger people. There are some de-
SCriptiOns i nthiS work which are not
conducive to the mora welfare of any
people. You may say, to the pure, all
things are pure but you cannot keep
a man pure and fill his mind with i'm
pure words or pictures; and there are
certainly man Of the latter in the
work mentioned"
We hold that it is impossible to tell
a vulgar anecdOte without lowering
character. We believe it is impossible
to handle smut without ASSORTMENT.
We are sure that it will faint any
mind that read often works contami-
mated by impurities. The health of the
soul is threatened by the exhalations
of the literary styes and the offerings
of ~debauched d~ecadents. Great tragic
works like Othello will not necessarily
throw a blur upon the mind. While
we do not believe the author of Quo
Vadis' intended to vitiate the public
mind or debauch the morals of his
readers, he set out to reproduce the
times of Nero, vile and horrible as
those times were, and TO do this he be-
l;oroJ ho bod 70 roin+ connnc Of ;ri-