The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1912-07-08
INFLUENCE OF ROUSSEAU

, en- who broke windows would have been
lucky to escape transportation or whip
ping in the Bridewell Many of the up
lift movements, based on the desire to
make very poor and humble people hap
pier would have seemed starry sentiment
tallsm to the generation which we super
ciliously accuse of being sentimental. In
fact, sentimentalism is a thing very diff
ficult to define, or even TO recognize save
by its divergence from some arbitrarily
assumed standard.
SO far as literature goes. while Rous-
seau's books are Sloppy enough. it is
doubtful if there has been period, unless
possibly for a brief time in the Renais-
sance when Petrarchism was the fashion.
when the sentimental was SO dominant as
In our own time. For. one New Machia-
velli" or Esther Waters there are a
thousand sentimental love stories. some
of them vastly more popular than any
novels of the stark school. The decay
of classical study has broken down the
most effective barrier against the senti-
mental. The favorite authors of the eigh-
teenth century were Virgil, Horace.
Juvenal, Cicero and Sallust, and if they
could not withstand the rising tide Of
romantic excess, they at least held it in
check. Have we at the present day any
equally effective antidote?- Certainly It
Is not to be found in contemporary litera-
ture, which abounds in extremes, from
Nietzsche and Strindberg at one end to
Tolstoi and Victor Hugo at the other, but
avoids the classical golden mean.
be doubted. for the very reason which
scientific pedagogy has urged against dis
ciplinary studies; the Intellectual power
developed in a scientific speciality is not
transferable. Both superstition and senti-
mentality may be found among men Of
science who in their own narrow field
are careful, conservative, and free fronf
bias. In short, we have about as manA
fads as ever, and they are supported bN
precisely that unrestralned emotionaiism
which we call sentiment when we sympa-
thize with 1t, and sentimentality when we
do not There is, of course. no hard and
fast boundary between the two, and the
virtue may easily by slight excess pass
over into the vile. That society should
keep somewhere near the vague line which
~Sl'eeA atcS ihShi do greatly 10 De DESIRED;
when sentimnt sinks low the age is deca-
dent, cynical selfish and incapable of
great things; when it boils up too sud-
denly the social machine may go to smash
as in 1888 The most hopeful feature of
the new century is precisely the senti-
mentalism which it scornfully disclaims,
but which none the less is fighting and
winning the battle of humanity against
the machine and an outgrown economic
rider. 1t is through his sentimentalism
that modernity, which disdainfully rejects
his ideas and dislikes his personality. is
most closely bound 10 Jean Jacques Rous-
seaut-the greatest of all conspicuously
weak men, and the unrivaied modern adj
yoeate of the cause of the weak. The
present problem must be TO turn this great
force into benefieent channels, to find for
1t outlets that will prevent destructive
excess. And this, at least, is far more
possible under the liberal governments of
today than under the ancient regime"