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About Hesperian student / (Lincoln [Neb.]) 1872-1885 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 1, 1878)
?T?TiihVr1'f?Tft-1 467 DEFENCE OK THE TIMES. VOL. VII, F"; y. j. -I: tent power over them, ami which prevents their independent notions. Not Unit we would in any way intimate that a grand and nohlo ideal does not tend to elevate the mind which contemplates it, not that having some worthy end in view, and he lug guided in its accomplishment by a high example, does not render the victory more probable, hut that too often does this degenerate into a false subservency, de trimental to the accomplishment of the very end sought. How to educate the people to fearless independence in all things, to spur them on to grand and noble deeds, to high and true living, is the problem to be solved. M. B. P. DEFENCE OF THE TIMES. I hear the statements so often made, that the present generation is so much more corrupt than the former; that dis honesty is so much more prevalent; that young men and women luck so much more in reverence and respect for their elders; that pride and vanity have so much greater hold upon the people ;lhat society in general is such a mere sham ; I say, 1 hear such statements so often, and from so many quarters, that sometimes 1 am al most led to believe them. Hut when I look back and see that each generation has made the same lamentations over the decay of virtue, has equally mourned the loss of honor and probity, and has praised the good old times with the same zeal, I am led to ask myself, is this cry of in creasing evil true? May it not he dis taucc that lends enchantment? Like some painting that charms the soul ami thrills witli pleasure every fibre of our being, when seen at a distance; but which he comes a mere mass of paints, rough and unseemly when closely examined; so it may bo with the past, charming when looked back to, but, when minutely scan ed, harsh and unrefined. And, again, if wo are to accept the views of the satirists and the croakers of each generation, and admit that their ago and time has fallen from the nobility of their ancestors, must we not necessarily con elude that each period in the world's his tory is a little more corrupt than the pre ceedlng? and that we, instead of living in the noble nineteenth century, are group ing our way through the darkest time in the world's history? Then must we admit that man lias al ready passed the zenith of his glory, and that his oud will bo shrouded in darkness more terrible, and more gloomy than any Unit has passed. But no, it is impossible. Tlio ago of the rack and the thumbscrew, the stake and the fagot, can not be better than the present with its free speech and free press. The time when thousands and tens of thousands gathered in the arena to see the contests between wild beasts, or, what is worse, to see the gladiatorial combats, can not be compared to the nineteenth century with its refinement and tenderness of feel ing. But, as the writings of any age de termine to a great extent the character of its people, I will notice the difference be. tween the writings of a fow authors of former times and some of the present age. First, take some of the old dramatists, as Beaumont and Fletcher; and, while we find in them much that is grand and ele vating, I think we Unci much more that had better be left unread. For while they by the greatness of their imagination, and their skill in weaving the plot, and by tho sudden and unex pected turns in tho fortune of their char acters, keep the mind of tho reader inter ested; still there is a coarseness, a lack of refinement in much of it that can not pos sibry have any other tendency than the blunting of that delicacy of feeling and thought that should exist in every man's mind. Of all their many plays I have not found one, as far as 1 have read, that I should call refined. And what is true of them is true of nearly all tho great dramatists of their day. In tho ago that imine. I lately followed, or the period of h