The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1907-02-02

there is but one clean character IN the play 8'i
bo,s q balffooI For the rest of the foul gang an
honest man can have but feelings OF eiSSuS' al
are corrupt The very ar OF the mouse rem WIN
the stencil of lust He even goes o'' VI S
i; bis Fills Natural for instance make uim-
nortant fipnres. shown to in profile low adul.
+orors True art Is clean and wholesome dumas
art is neither He seems to hold 10 lIe lueoIS 'lL'
love rehabiIitates fallen woman ana that "5en >'
is not capable of rehabilitation she mus Ue P''
soned stranged Alexander DGlllII, 'o ,ro J
was. if it were possible. dramatically more ut
boucbed than his SON. His Antony Is shameless
l., and grossly immoral 1t IS tissue OF horrors,
made ND of adultery incest and unlawful love, inc
accumulation of sin in his "lo our de NeSle II more
horrible than in the heather play Medea' In ms
lTu - ON Angel we have duels and deaths, SUI
c;das seductions Opponents and murders. Inc
FnoIisb novelist Thackeray who was himself n"
saint after witnessing this play, writes IN ms
paris Sketch Book that a government which
would tolerate this indecent entertainment was
disgrace to Christian civilization
in Emile Anglers plays there Is everywhere a
sickening odor of depravity, continuous change
from passionate adultery to sala1ed proStlI uuoH.
and rage for luxury and extravaganza / pas
over the foul dramas of Victor Sardou whose CHAR
acters are
"Raadv alike to worship and revile.
To bni1d the altar or to light the pile"
or the dozen dramas of the younger Dumas.
all with perhaps one except1on) turn on 'uulterE
mr. iIeoitimacv and one or the other OF these sun-
iocts furnishes material for one-haf OF Angler
PLAYS Angler lowers marriage to the level OF Wi
gar gallantry by giving conJugal endearTnents tn
externsls of criminal passion and uncoverlng the
sacramental secrecy of welded life Octave EeuI-
let Labiche, Meilhae and Ludovlc halevy, VIII"
wrote for the French stage, are men OF unqueS-
toned talent and brightness, but their brightness Is
ouenched in gloom and despair and in the darkness
of cynical and profigate art. The French gov
ernment last week decreed to lola the honors OF
tomb in the Pantheon the Westminster Abbey ot
France and rightly so. for. from the Christian
viewpoint it is the Campo Santo of some OF ia"
greatest enemies of God and of the lowest seouT-
drels that have disgraced our race since the Rt
demption "Zola's drama. Mana, Is work of uu-
speakable filth" writes Frederick Harrison. SCI
in shocking naturalism." In Mana the hero's love
is sensual indulgence only Nor Is this conception
of love peculiar to the hero. The heroine. as com
pletely as her male companion has freed herself
from all diseernment of good and evil She recol5
from abnormal impurity no more than from normal
and the climax of the play is her full indulgence
in both When YOU remember that these plays are
staged in the best theatres of Paris 1t will help you
to understand the nature of the social acids that
are decomposing religious belief in France and cor
roding the morals of its people. 1t would seem that
neither the people nor their radical leaders are con
scious of their impending ruin. do they un-
derstAnd that nation by sensual excess, may
weaken itself as effectualy the athlete by over
work. HUBERT LARKIN.