The Saint Paul globe., 1904-02-19
The function Of the afternoon paper
is at last discovered. 1t gets the war
news that is delayed in transmission.
INTELLECTUAL HONESTY.

TN IELLEC OAI 7ONEOtrs
The so-called popular novel is the
modern literary scapegoat. Whenever
becomes necessary that their pessimism
shall find expression, or when they feel
that their wit needs sharpening, they
naturally turn to the book that has
exhausted the greatest number of edi-
tions and hold it up in their respective
columns as proof of a degenerate lit
erary taste. Yet whoever has kept
track Of the literary output Of the past
fifteen or twenty years, whoever has
with the contents Of each successive
popular novel, must acknowledge, If he
is honest, that the quality of sincerity
is easily discoverable in every book
that has absorbed for a time public
attention. Generally the authors
manner of expressing himself has
nothing to recommend it, frequently
there are misstatements and nearly al
ways there is the fault Of exaggera-
tion. But the misstatements are the
result Of simple ignorance, they never
indicate deliberate attempt to juggle
geration Is the authors own point of
view, and is not employed merely to
further an attempt to color the point
Of view Of the reading public. The
popular novel is at least an honest
book, and this is the very thing that
makes for it's popularity.
Today intellectual honesty is at
premium. It gained that distinction
when the wielder of a ready pen dis
covered that a very good living was
to be made from his ability, provided
he did not wait until he had some
thing to say but expressed himself at
once. Therefore the man who writes
a book today that the public accepts
in spite of its faults, because of its
honesty, banks, unless he is intellec-
tually honest, on it's popularity and
puts out another that Is not an honest
expression of himself. The tempta-
tion Is tremendous one, and 1t is not
surprising that the majority of writer's
succumb to it. The fact that they
have succumbed and are succumbing
Is what has changed, on the surface,
at any rate, literature from an art into
a trade. But whoever believes that
this change strikes deeper than the
surface shows a lack Of faith, not in
the future of literature, merely, but in
the future of life itself. That which is
not true must perish. That which is
true, however badly or inadequately 1t
has been expressed, must survive, if
not as an entity at least as an infu-
ence. Given perspective, the judg-
ment Of the majority becomes abso-
Iutely reliable. This is the reason why
the present is safe in the hands Of the
future.
It Is the writer, therefore, and not
literature or life, who is affected by
the intellectual dishonesty that ap-
pears to prevail today. To put out
day after day that which Is not a
truthful expression OF himself has Just
as bad an effect morally on man as the
pilfering Of little articles would have.
In the end his moral nature is under
mined. Carlyle, than whom no hon
ester writer ever penned a line, has
said: LET a man but speak forth
with genuine earnestness the thought,
the emotion, the actual condition Of
his own heart; and the other men, so
strangely are we all knit together by
the tie Of sympathy, must and will
give heed to him" And the converse
of this is true. The man who speaks
with an assumed earnestness will not
hold the attention of the world long,
for the world is demanding today, just
as it has always demanded, intellectual
honesty.
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