The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-02-19

pure manly principles are inStilled.
It is the home that is the true nur-
sery that great men with elevated
characters and noble aspirations and
well adjusted endowments are form
ed. If the boy is father to the man,
SO is the mother the skilful artist
who models SO deftly the form that
is to be so imbued with life, and
whose energies are TO be directed in
the channel which she so carefully
fashions. The faithful mother will
surely have. honorable and obedient
and loving children.
There is no greater enemy of the
people than the man who seeks to
destroy the homes which are the
very foundation of society. and the
very base of government and civiliza-
ton. Keep sacred the homes if you
would keep pure the people. The
legislator who seeks to dig under the
homes of a free people by the curse
of bad divorce laws, is unworthy of
public confidence, and should never
be again trusted in matters of law
making. He should be treated as a
public enemy. So many men arc by
nature vicious. lustful and cruel,
that the true man, the moral man.
the upright man. the benevolent and
kindly man is to be regarded g jewel
in the midst of the dissolute and the
dangerous.
l have had occasion more than
once to state that / read no novel
until it is at least one year old. l got
the idea of abstention years ago
from that great author in the last
century, Thomas Carlyle, the very ia
nous Scotsman. He said that two
e,I,a H. 1, Ia nnlr II
Emerson, New Englander, who COR
responded with Carlyle, gave this adj
monition relative to reading new
books. Never read a book until it
is a year old. Never read any but
famed books" The suggestion as to
famed books is excellent. Why
read poor or ordinary book when
in the same time you might have
read great or famous book? 1t
takes as long to read a book OF but
little merit, If any, as it does to read
a novel of thought, inspiration and
power. How foolish then to fritter
away your precious time over the
multitudinous ordinary novels of the
day that rush from the presses of
the world in cataracts, at the rate of
six day? Why throw away your
money by buying a novel only pub
liShed but yesterday, and noticed i'll
some newspaper or magazine, whose
name is legion, without true discrim-
ination or honest insight? Higher
education the boast of our particu-
lar age, has not improved the gem
eral output of books, or made more
careful the readers in selection. There
are multiplied libraries by the scores,
in town and in country, but trash Is
devoured more than substantial ment-
al food is sought or loved. Books now
are of mushroom growth, and while
- a rr,A
unfortunately the books generally
read are of an unsubstantial quality
and almost always of no genuine lit
erary value. It would be wiser if the
novel readers who rush and scramble
for the new fctions would abandon
the Improbable chase, and turn to
works of q high quality, the products
of rich intellectual gifts, even some
times of men and women of genius.
To read the best biographies would
be equally as entertaining, while IL
constant reading of the greatest MIS-
tories, ancient and modern, would
bring incomparably more edffication
and information of solid and useful
kind. 1t would be informing, per-
haps inspiring, If the eager, hungry
devourers of the regulation novel of
this era, would seek to know
what famous men and women in the
past read when in their youth. /
have now and then given some ex-
amples. You will find the Younger
Pitt. C. J. Fox. Macaulay, John Stuart
Mill, DeQuincey. and scores of other
famous folk reading between ten and
eighteen the greatest known works,
both among moderns and ancients. A
great change is needed now. There
are more alleged scholars" now
the proportion being far greater than
it was half century ago. but is there
really an increase of well read, finely
cultured people? ] do not believe It.
j think / could name a half dozen
towns in North Carolina in which
there were i'll proportion to popula-
ton twice as many well read, gener-
ously cultured people in 1845-50, as
can be found in them in 1905. OF
course more people can read and
write now than then. OF course more
people read now the substantial and
more reputable newspapers. and the
hundred illustrated monthlies but
how about the great authors Of anti
guilty and the great moderns of Ger
many. Italy, France. Spain, Great
Britain and the United States? A
comparison of the best culture of
fifty or sixty years since with that OF
the present would not be detrimental
to the former. Who reads the great
Greek poets now? Who reads Virgil
and Horace and Catullus and Ovid?
Who reads Plutarch, Dante and the
more famous poets since their day?
Who reads the best of the German
men of genius-Richter. Goethe.
Herder, Schiller, Heine and others?
Who reads-not of, but in Macaulay
the entire or greater part Of
the writings of the greatest English
and Scotch authors now--Chaucer
Spenser, Shakespeare, MarloWe. Ben
Jonson and the other greatest Eliza
bethan dramatists, and Bacon. Milton,
Dryden, Pope and the foremost |
since? Read the best and reap q |
golden harvest. Reading makes the |
full man as Lord Bacon, or some other |
great writer. said.
You will see essays, etc, publish |
ed by Dorothy Dix" which is the |
pen name of Mrs. Elizabeth M. Gill |
S,La is. Va l