The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-10-08

the sale Of corrupt matter. For busi-
ness is always business, and when bust
ness men see. that the tendency of a
certain portion of the reading pub
lie, notably the upper classes, is
toward prurient literature, they might,
were they less honorable and conscien-
tious than they are, avail themselves
financially of this morbid and de-
PRAYED taste. Especially as there are
large number of self-called estylists''
who write reviews of books and who
can always be relied upon to praise
the indecent in literature. They call
it strong" or ''virile," and recIx
nothing Of the fact that the Strong
stencil of it may poison previously
healthy minds, and corrupt otherwise
Innocent souls. Prurient literature is
always never-failing accompani-
ment of social blight. The fancy
for it arises when wholesome literary
fare has become too simple for the
diseased and capricious moral appe-
tite, and when the ideal conceptions of
great imaginative minds such as the
romances of Scott and Dickens, are
voted as too long and boresomei -
there s really no time to read such
stories nowadaysi' No, there is no
time. There's plenty of time to play
bridge thought
Poetry-the greatest of arts-is alb
solutely neglected In our present Pc
Rod, because NOBODY viii read it,
A-4ong the most highly educated"
persons many can be met who prattle
glibly about Shakespeare but who
neither know the names of his plays
nor have read line Of his work.
With the decline of poesy comes as a
matter of course the decline of sculp-
ture, painting, architecture and music.
Poesy is the, parent stem from which
all these arts have sprung. The proofs
of their decline are visible enough
amongst US today. Neither Great
Britain, nor Europe. nor America can
A.
last great poet was Tennyson-since
his death we have had no other.
Equally there is no great sculptor. no
great painter, no great architect, no
great OF course, in its largest sense,
in the sense whereof we speak Of
Michael Angelo, Raffaelle, or Bee
thoven. There are plenty Of clever
''sketchy" artists, ''inpressionist"
painters, "rocOcO" sculptOrS and me-
lodious drawing room song writer's
but we wait in vain for a new grand
opera, a nobly inspired statue, or a
cathedral such as the devout old
monks designed in the intervals be-
tween prayer and praise. The beau
tiful and divine ideals that made such
work possible are, if not quite dead.
slowly dying, under the influence OF
the blight which infects the social
atmosphere-tae blight which is thick
with self and sensuality. which looms
between man and his Maker, shutting
out every hopeful glimpse of the sun
of faith, whose lifegiving rays in
vigorate the soul. And those who see
it slowly darkening, those who have
been and are students of history, and
are thereby able to recognize its ap-
pearance, its meaning and its mission.
and who know the mischief wrought
by the poison it exhales. viii surely
pray for a storml
Come but the direst storm and stress
that Fate
Can bring upon US in its darkest hour,
Then viii the realm awake, however late,
From the warm sloth in which we yawn
and cover,
And pass our sordid lives in greed, mate
With animal delights in luxury's bower;
Then will the ancient virtues bloom anew,
And love of country quench the love OF
gold;
Then viii the hooking spirits that Undue
Our daily converse fade like misty cold,
When the clear sunshine permeates the
blue
And men be manly as in the days OF old,
And scorn the base delights that sink them
down
Into the languid waters where they
drown!"