Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1900-06-02

SOIlG O4 the play Ho" OCloAS I'm fooi
might be played I do not know what
might not be Played
DUNG the year just past" said an
other eminent critic. Sir Edward Clarke,
1.-The two most notable books were Swim
burne's 'Rosamund' and 'Stalky & Co..
by Rudyard K%ipling." Sir Edward was
speaking of a year which had produced
such works as 1.-THE Letters of Robert
Louis Stevenson Mr.. Lecky's Map of
Life" Mr.. Edward Gosse's Life of
Donne," Mr.. Maurice Hewlett's Little
Novels of Italy, and the "Paolo and
francesca" of Mr.. Phillips. Sir Edward
proceeded to declare that 1.-The manu-
script of 'Rosamund' ought to have been
burned instead of published, and 'Stalky
& CO.. as a specimen of the degraded
position to which present day literature
had sunk. There was only one remedy
for this state of affairs, and that was for
parents not to allow their children to
condescend to follow literature down to
the gutter by reading such publications"
Fortunately, we have not to inuire into
the soundness Of Sir Edwards logic. I
used the expression "mischievous' IN de-
scribing such u~tterances as these. 1t is a
stong*word, perhaps, to employ in refer
: ence to gentlemen of the standing of Lord
Salisbury and Sir Edward Clarke . For
the lord chancellor and for Sir Edward
Clarke I have The greatest respect, but
lIUlIllIlS COulu lIluuGC IC ~ iC6oiu AiS
as authorities upon the subject they ap-
pear to handle with such freedom and
such gusto. But / regard these thunder
bolts as dangerous m as l think
there might be some misguided persons
| who imagine that, because these sweep
ing and superficial pronauncements pro-
! ceeded from such eminent men they must
be sound and valuable. What would be
said to Mr.. s~wineburne, to Mr.. Kipling,
or to any other prominent dramatic au-
thor, were one of them to presume to
question the lord chancellor on the wis
dom of some of his judicial appoint
ments? So if anyone elected to enter the
ranks of the critics upon the strength
of such indiscriminate denunciations, he
must not complain If those who put a
different and wider Interpretation upon
the mission of literature and the drama
assigns to them places among those per-
sons not remarkable for qualities of lib
crafty and open-mindedness
He must not mind if he were included
in that body of people which in it's mis-.
trust of the theater, in it's jealousy of the
influence of the theater, would reduce the
drama to the intellectual level of the
drawing room charade. He must moi
complain if he were classed with those
who could not perceive that true comedy
by faithfully initiating the manners OF
the age instead of deliberately n stu.
pidly setting to work to reform it's NOR.
ais might be, from the very force of its
object lesson, a moral entertainment OF
the finest kind. He must not complain i
he were classed with those who failed tt
recognize that it is life with which litera'
ture and the stage had to deal, and no
their own prudish and sentimental view
of it: who would bury the character Of
the theater and of letters under a rubbish
heap of cant and zAke-believe; and wht
We're max to understand that the rea
' decadent drama and the real decaden
literature which present a flattering bu
false conception of human conduct. An6
finally he must not accuse us of discour
tesy If we make bold to warn him of tn,
danger of evil association with those PEG
pie who, under the pretence of being NOR
alists, are nothing but moral-mongers.-
Arthur w. Pinero in Boston Transcript