The Neihart herald. [volume] (Neihart, Mont.) 1890-1901, 1898-03-19
MODERN READING.
We Are Inundated with Every ResHa ~
EVIL and Woe.

We Are Inundated with Every koSuA -
Evil and Vice.
Better not read" said NiebuhN
"books in which YOU make the &C.
ouaintance OF the devil" The advice
was given at an age when men aid
read books, and when these, indeed.
formed the bulk Of their reading, says
the New York Tribune. In these days
pToportionately fewer books appear to
be read. To those that are, the same
advice applies as ~pertinently as ever.
For the number of books which serve
as letters of introduction, If not to the
devil at least to his most character
istic works, is large and, n may fear,
growing. There has been of late a
food OF problem novels" in which the
problem" is that of the relations be-
tween the sexes, and the solution
sought is almost invariably to make
those relations not pure, natural and
~snnobling, but unclean, abnormal and
debasing, and to find specious excuses
of apologies therefor. The greatest
and most puzzling problem in the
whole business is, however, how intel
ligent people of clean minds and lives
can find pleasure or profit in porting
over such revolving stuff. The genius
Of a Rossetti may invest Jenny" with
an unmerited but nevertheless fasoi-
mating interest. But the bedraggled
denizen of the Tenderloin, treated by
some schoolgirl sister of Gifted Hop
kins, can never be anything more than
cheap and nasty. Nor does the latter
day predominance of newspapers over
books in the least lessen the force and
value Of the philosophers injunction.
The vital truth in it is universal, ap-
plying to the costliest tome in the bib
Iophtle's library and to the penny
paper with which the errand boy or
the scullery maid regales a leisure
hour. Better not read anything in
which you make the acquaintance Of
evil. Yet in much of the current read
Ing of the day how evil is Haunted and
forced upon the public acquaintance
Here Is a wretched woman, illiterate,
drunken, debauched. Her whole life
has been given up to physical and
moral filth. There Is not an honest
shopgirl in town who, meeting her
upon the street, would not Instructive
ly step aside lest her skirts should
brush against the creature and be de-
filed. The career of vice Is, however,
crowned with a capital crime, or with
some participation in one. Instantly
the fact is made the excuse for intro
ducing the personally to the
entire public. Through the medium of
h press she is brought into the
household, into the family circle. Her
hideous features are thrust before every
eye. Her ignorant and vicious words
are repeated to every ear. She is made
the subject Of psychological studies
n every infection of her voice as she
tells her tale of infamy is descanted
upon and Interpreted" as though it
were the utterance of an oracle. The
example is only one Of an innumerable
multitude with which the reading mat
ter Of the day is crowded. Those who
read make the acquaintance not only
of the devil but of all the inhabitants
OF Pandemonium. If, then, people are
to be known by their acquaintance
what is to be said of the present or OF
the oncoming generation of readers
1t is a forbidding prospect. The daily
saturation Of minds and Of immature
minds with all manner of filth newt.
ably conduces to unsoundness. TC
argue otherwise is to contradict com,
nonsense. When men sleep in mi
asmatic swamps to avoid fever ant
ague and soak themselves in rum t.
escape drunkenness they may FORTH,
themselves against vice and crime b,
gloating over them and making heroe
OF their perpetrators. But when tina
time ZONES we shall have to rewrit
every chapter of moral philosophy. A
present it is safest to shun evil, to lool
upward II we would rise, to look for
ward II we would make progress, and
IL we would have earth move towar
her earthly best, to obey the advic,
given by ancient wisdom-"Whatso
ever things are pure, whatsoever thing
are lovely, whatsoever things are O
good report, think on these things.