The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1909-07-13

their books to see how far they can
venture without entirely abandoning
every principle of morality and openly
favoring every description that can
awaken defeaned desires and ignoble
impulses. Many Of them are utterly
coarse, shameless, most foul and pros
tituting.
Thomas Hardy is probably the
greatest living English novelist. now
that George Meredith has ended his
earthly career forever, having quite
recently passed beyond "this sad vale
of tears" Hardy, [ do not think, has
any rival now in Great Britain or the
United States, or France and Germany
as a novelist. He is beyond all tar
questioning a great genius in fiction.
He has q large sin to answer tor IN
d~ebauching his superb genius, ana
lending himself to the creating Of two
of the most reprehenSIDle, vulgar,
obscene, debauched. lascivious novels
in all English literature. / believe that
a coarse. obscene, vicious book that
is evil in intending not only
should be avoided as you would avofd
a peSt-hOuse or prison of villains, but
should be banished under law as utter
ly vicious and eliminating. There
should be no compromise with Grimm
ality and deVilishnesS of this kind. a
man of sound morals CannOt afford
to tamper with such vice and MINOR
ality, nor can he tamper with a rob
Der tariff. A book of such putridlty
and lowness should be avoided, reject
ed. condemned out and out by sound,
healthfuI public sentiment. There
should be no possible compromise
with badness and corruption in either
literature or policies. There are writ
ers who wish readers not to discard
-o,-zl. - 4 or - thor n no ~nt h16 in
parts. If there is poison in one page
give it the go-by, and let the devil
have his own. All ursoundness, I'M
cleanliness, vicious, ~corrupting dis
plays Shoul De avoided, spit Upon.
Do not be mislead by plausible, ap-
preciative essayists Of the Cable type
who once wrote that " a page is not
necessarily unclean because If deals
with unclean things But why stir
q muck-heaD? why touch "unclean
~things?" But it is just to him to add
that he writes in commentator of "a
genuinely unclean page-a page which
however subtly, gives uglinesS the vic
tory over beauty in our own souls
should not blind US to the moral base
ness which. after all, makes 1t, IN It's
last analysis. bad art, no matter how
noble the book, as q whole, IN WllCn IL
may be fOund.'
A sentence may be loaded with such
dynamite that shall prove G~estruc-
tive to the taste and happines OF q
reader, or worse still may secure the
loss of a precious sou, the complete
blasting of a life. The rift in the lutte
however tiny robs the instrument of
it's music, destroys it's most thrilling
and fascinating charms. A poem may
be the most cOnsummate in the perfec-
ton of its technique, in the melody
of it's members, and it may rise hIgh
in the heaven of ~inVentiOn,' even, but
LOT tbara no tho S1JpppStiOn of Inst. the
f~aintest hint of grossness, the falnteSt
injection of sewer gas, ana 1t Is IaISe
to art, false to morality, false to hui
manity. l read some time the fOl-
lowing in the New York Evening Post,
that so long has held the highest place
in regard to literature in the news
paper world, which is too germane and
forceful to be overlooked now:
What we want of him (the artist)
is, not an inventory, but an artistic
rendering and impression of certain
selected facts. To us the idea is alb
surd that there is such a thing as a
floating artistic talent, perfectly indif-
ferent to it's material and able to
wreak itself upon the beastly and the
BlackguardIy, as Well as upon the
beautiful. It is sometimes said that
anything handle in an artistic way
becomes beautiful in the process. But
how can handling make the hideous
attractive? If it does, or seems to do
so, wha becomes Of our severe love
of the truth'?"
I saw it mentioned that Robson
county was the most extensive in area
Of all North Carolina counties. 1t
was mentioned that from northwest
to northeast it was sixty miles in
length. 1t was also mentioned that
it covered one-fiftieth part Of the en-
tire State. [ hin that Halifax
county in length is quite fifty miles
from about Palmyra to the end of the
section that extends north of the town
of Halifax to the extreme limit. 1t
may be longer in another direction
from near Palmyra to the Warren
line. Before Vance county was erected
at the expense of Granville that coun-