The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1911-01-28
GOOD AND BAD N0VEI|sTs.
The Great Influence Which They Exert
Over Modern Society.

To the pages of the Jesuits' publica-
tion Etudes (Paris), Joseph Ferchat
contributes paper dealing with the
work of a French writer, Henri Bor-
deauX, whose novels, the reviewer i'm
plicity declares, possesses all the pow
er of a regenerating influence in
| France at the present moment, and as
such are commendab1e as examplars
to all writer's who desire to see the
! forces of Satan beaten in the assault
they are making on the strongholds of
Christian society and life.
Not only does the work of this
writer sustain the argument for Cath
olicity, says the reviewer; it also con-
stitutes an admirable counteractive to
those writings which, in the form of
fiction or essay, seek to glorify the
| doctrines of MARKHAM or atheistic So
cialism.
] Monsieur Bordeaux, who is one of
the first of French litterateurs, bases
his conception of enlightening and edu-
cative fiction on the main groundwork
of the moral code, namely on the
principle of the family, and on the i'm
possibility of there existing coherent
form of respectable civilization which
ignores the necessity of the family
as a governing principle.
Says the reviewer:
'"The first and essential duty of the
novelist, laid down by M. Bordeaux,
is to educate and raise mems minds
in affirming the necessity of all man.
kind submitting to the exigencies of
the family life over all other human
considerations. The supremacy of duty
over pleasure becomes a duty to all
literary men and women who must
seek to show what society's ideal
should be. All novels which glorify
those currents of modern social life, in
which a cynical chase after the pleas
ures of material life forms the only
form of energy, enervate the charac-
ter, degrade sentiment, and are who'll
ly destructive of chastity, the first
virtue of strong nations and energetic
individualities. Moreover, when SEN
suousness and pruriency become the
only point upon which artistic work
is based. these vices are not long in
running the quality of artistic effort.
1t is written in the history of decadent
| literature, as in those OF deCauent
nations and individuality, that the SEN
sual always points the beginning of
impending collapse. The enervating
work of men like Pierre Lott, Anato1e
France, Pierre Louys, and above all,
Gabriel d'Annunzio, is work which is
pointedly of the degenerate style, and
it needs no prophet to prophesy that
such work bears the seeds of rapid
perishableness in all it's outward in
dications. Speaking of d'Annunzio, for
instance Louis Veuillot wrote: m.
d'Annunzio thinks that he has created
a theory of art founded on the glorifi-
cation of personality through joy or
pleasure. It is an illusion. For did it
not begin when the first man ate the
apple in order to become strong and
powerful?'"
| The vices of the modern novel neces-
sarily exclude the maintenance in
honor and respect of the bond of the
family, inasmuch as they for the great
er part exclude the unalterable prin-
ciple of the moral law that the duty to
| be fulfilled is the first rule of life.
| AS long as the pursuit of social joys
remains the main attraction of the
wealthy, the more will large class of
readers, whose inclinations tend to-
ward such literature, find caterers;
and just as long will writer's continue
to glorify worldly success whose orr
gins are suspicious and mostly down
right wicked, and so impose, uncon-
scious1y to their victims, their own
meretricious morality upon society.
The innocent girl who condones the
fact that her husband-to-be has foun-
ded his wealth on robbery; the wife
who excuses, if she does not encour-
age, the dishonesty of a husband
these are types we are all familiar
with, and which are overwhelmingly
current in modern fiction.
And worst of all, social vices of this
kind are, if not exalted, at least for
given on the ground that any given
one among them is pardonable for
the reason that "a great love-" or "a
great sorrow" lies at the root of the
motive.
Heroic renuneiation, self-denial,
courage of resistance in temptation
all these are of no account, and for
the simple reason that such virtues
mean poverty and failure, and these
are, of course, inconsistent with mod
ern social requirements which must
have Success or Death.
One of the glories of Christianity,
says M. Ferchat, is to have given to
woman the dignity that paganism de-
prived her of. The dignity of woman
hood, the dignity of wifehood, the dig
nifty of Observation-Disclosures are traits
that the paganism of modern letters is
ignoring, not only to the degradation
of society, but to the degradation of
art that endures.