Shoshone journal. [volume] (Shoshone, Idaho) 1884-1931, 1898-02-11
MODERN READING.
We Are Inundated with Every Form OF
EVIL and Vice. v

EVIL and Vice.
"Better not read" said Niebuhr,
"books in which you make the ac-
quaintance of the devil" The advice
was given at an age when men did
read books. and when these, indeed,
formed the bulk of their reading, says
the New York Tribune. In these days
proportionately 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, II not to the
devil at least to his most character
istic works, is large and, one may fear,
growing There has been of late a
flood 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
ennobling, 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
igent people of clean minds and lives
can find pleasure or profit in porting
over such revolving stuff The genius
Of Rossetti may invest Jenny" with
an unmerited but nevertheless fasci-
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, APP
plying to the costliest tome in the bib
liophile'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
1ucing the woman personally to the
entire public. Through the medium of
he press she is brought into the
into the family circle. Her
lideous features are thrust before every
Eye. Her ignorant and vicious words
ire repeated to every ear. She is made
he subject of psychological studies"
md every infection of her voice as she
ellis her tale of infamy is descanted
lpon and interpreted" as though it
we're the utterance of an oracle The
is only one of an innumerable
multitude with which the reading mat
er of the day is crowded Those who
cad make the acquaintance not only
# the devil but of all the inhabitants
# Pandemonium. If, then, people are
o be known by their acquaintance,
ndt 10 W DS SdlQ VI Tue present. OF VI I
he oncoming generation of readers?
t is forbidding prospect. The daily .
aturation of minds and of immature
linds with all manner of filth newt
bly, conduces to unsoundness. To
rgue otherwise is to contradict COM d
nonsense. When men sleep in mi |
smatic swamps to avoid fever and :
que and soak themselves in rum to I
scape drunkenness they may fortify t
themselves against vice and crime by i
loating over them and making heroes t
their perpetrators. But when that :
me comes we shall have to rewrite 5
very chapter of moral philosophy. At
2nt it is safest to shun evil, to look d
pward if we would rise, to look for :
ard if we would make progress, and, c
we would have earth move toward
er earthly best, to obey the advice
ven by ancient wisdom hatso- :,
1er things are pure, whatsoever things <,
e lovely, whatsoever things are of -
)od report, think on these things"