The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-11-20
incidents
m AzD Observations
RX II IL GRAY

1OI uiIlIlci uUSllSQ Will lilulSHtllOII,
land 1 don't want to go to school to
her any more"
why, what's the matter, Dear?'
asked the astonished mother. Il
thought you loved Miss Liza and I'm
sure she didn't say anything that
wasn't NIGEL"
''She said that volcano was a noun
tain that belched forth smoke and
fire" replied the long-legged scholar
getting red with reminiscent embar-
rassment at the recollection.
"Why what's wrong with that?"
Miss Etiquette drew herself up in
panied reproach at her parents lack
of the finer instincts Of ladyhood.
She ought to have said 'eructated'
instead of 'belched,' " she replied Sc
verely. Nobody nice says 'belch!'''
The above, as an exaggerated in
stance of tendency that has almost
gotten beyond the affectation of the
prude to the point of racial hypocrisy.
People. in the eagerness to say things
euphemisticaliy are in danger of say
ing nothing. There is an ever-Widen-
ing cult of those who are mice" to the
point of inanity. Shown most strong
ly in the literary habit of the day the
practice of beating about the BUSH
has gone to the extremes at which the
writer's, the thinkers, even the men
who make the laws and, more partlc-
ularly, enforce them are coming to
care little about the un-buried corpse
so long as the brush conceals 1T. A
writer, taking an unpleasant theme
will dilute the sense in page after
page and chapter after chapter of
iterated synonyms, comparisons, SIM
lilies and suggestions that form on the
whole a far more explicit and an in
fnitely more attractive picture or the
sin that it is presumably intended TO
l. oh hlV
would have been furnished by few
plain and pointed paragraphs that
probing the cancer in the beginning,
would have left the author free TO de-
pict or infer the inevitable moral with
ten-fold clarity and power.
No respectable writer in these days
has any use for Vice except as the foil
to a lesson; and yet the man who
would write "a book all light and no
shadow would be either a UNIQUE gen
iuS or a transparent Jelly-hsh-and
every one who finds the time to dab
BILE in contemporary literature will
agree that genius is scarce almost to
the point of extinction.
But, While nature, the approxima-
ton of which is art, insists upon the
cloud in it's true interpretation, the
average writer in his use of gilt puts
himself, perhaps unconsciously, into
the attitude of one licking his chops
to think less of what one is than what
one wears; more of what one says
than what one thinks; to wait too
long for proof of wrong doing and
wrong feeling, both personally and
otherwise-in short to let the detec-
ton of conscience wait on the indict-
ment of publicity which comes always
after and never in time to avoid the
crash.
There have always been differences
of opinion as to whether society fohns
its literature, or literature its society;
but, in any event, | take it as true
that an established literature forms
manners; and that manners frequently
bow themselves into places that should
be sacred to principle. And this
would an / could and Il could an 1
dared" coquetry with the ugliness of
truth falls far short of being in any
wise a moral stimulus. The public
dearly loves several things except to
be humbugged and one of them is TO
have point and direction given to the
salaciousness which it lacks the cour-
age to confess and which it delights
to secretly imagine. Youth, too is In
qusitive and it cannot be denied u
sweetened cup when the stronger
waters might be forbidden. But, as
youth always finds out anyway in the
the pure simplicity of childhood can
rank only as an incident that suggests
"a pity" beside the more serious mat
ter of a growing hypocrisy that breeds
the things it affects to deny
Whether again the conditions refer
red to are in any real sense fostered
by the great publishers or whether
they merely follow the lead of the
public taste, | do not know, but on
this point / was struck recently by
what / was told by writer who has
met with no inconsiderable measure of
success.
This author had sent on for accept
ance a short story and the manuscript
had just been returned "for revision"
The grounds on which the story was
sent back were both interesting and
enlightening.
I'VE notice." wrote the publishers,
that you have one scene devoted to
a description of a drunken sea-cap-
tain. II you will revise the manu-
script in this particular, it will be ad-
mirable. 1t is not the policy of our
magazine" piously went on the editor,
Ito lay emphasis on drinking.
Now the sea captain was a charac-
ter that had been worked out with
scrupulous attention to detail by an
author who was trying to do nothing
more than to produce a legitimate and
harmonious piece of fiction. He was
essential to the story as it had been
conceived and his drunkenness was es-
sential to himself. The author who
had gone to bed and gotten up and
eaten meals with the characters for a
month knew that while it was desir-
able to send him to Keely. the Cap
tain was bound to drink and that he
was bound to be drunk at that hour.
That was the only emphasis on drink
ing that an intelligent reader would
have implied from the incident of the
character, yet even that was too strong
for the delicate sensibilities Of the
editor of a great house!
And the beauty Of the thing was
that the same publishers who so in
continently kicked out the bibulous
sea-captain had within the year been
guilty of the publication and wide adj
: vertisement of two books devoted to
social problems in which the prob
lem" was merely incidental to a
wealth of suggestion and eroticism got
ten up in the purple aud fine linen OF
adroit and un-candid phrase-pooks
that were patiently designed to sci
because thew showed the way to gioal
on vice with the SNUG and swallow