THE COURIER
elliptical phrase; that it is a most artificial, yet accurate, exhibit of
human weaknesses; that it is exceedingly difficult reading, being at
once prolix in the narrative and too much abbreviated in the sen
tence; and that, in a word, a mere commonplace in itself, it is inter
esting only by reason of its style, which one hesitatee, nevertheless,
to designate as antiseptic Like the late Walter Pater, but in lesser
degree, the author of "The Egoist" and "Beauchatnp's Career, is to
remain caviare to the general reader. In the caso of Mr. Meredith
this is greatly to be deplored, because of the large and even predom
inant proportions of living human interest there is in the extensive
body of his work. But Mr. Meredith deliberately and most foolishly
sees fit to veil this the supreme test of durable fiction with a
manner which at best is inviting in its poses and petty affectations.
The most palpable effect of this is the unreality of a scene that is
but partly disclosed, and of characters who all talk in the same way
that is to say, in a way that men and women never talk. Here
are a few of Mr. Meredith's phrases: "Fair girls," ho says, "are
softer, woollier" than brunes "and when they mean to look serious
overdo it by craping solemn; or they pinaforo a jigging eagerness, or
boist propriety o'n a chubby flaten grin." When one of the charac
ters is startled, "she jumped an illumined half about on her chair.'
An editor and a women of fashien forming a friendly alliance: "The
different hemi-spheres became known as one sphere to these birds of
broad wing convening in the upper blue above a qnartered carcase
earth." When tho heroine blushes, "she flushed her dark brown-red
late-sunset" And so on, until tho reader feels thankful to quote
Mr. Meredith's own words to "grasp a comprehensible sentence of
a muddleb rigmarole."
The following remarks by a correspondent are in keeping with
ideas recently.advocated in Tiie Courier, which called forth some
criticism: "I do not know how other men may feel, but as for me
I am tired with trying to keep up with the phantasmagoric fads of
religion and literature. Being a reasonably busy man, I can not
always seize a fashion as it flies! A new novel appears. Society is
saturated with it. It leaks into every conversation. Its colors cur
rent literature. Very probably you are back in the middle ages
with Emerson and Huxley and Ruskin. You must hasten perusal
of this wonderful, epoch-creating book; this book that threatens to
effect the vernal equinox. You get around to it in a few months, and
you are surprised to find that you are just as far behind the time as
you were before. Society is chasing different air bubbles, putting
up new gods, and fifty copies of Peter Ibbetson and Marcella and
Robert Elsmere placidly repose upon the shelf of tho public library
to accumulate the affluent dust So it is with religious
fads. We used to have a fellow in our divinity school who had
written something to which, he said, Isaiah couldn't hold a candle!
I believe odo of the students intimated to him that probably Isaiah
would have held a candle to it being sure that it was lighted, too;
Every now and then somebody invents or discovers a new religion
that is rapidly going to supersede Christianity. Sometimes this
wonderful faith ib imported from Central India, where it has been in
the keeping of mysterious Mahatmas for untold centuries, very prob
ably in expectation of a profitable American market. Sometimes it
is embalmed and buried in a ponderous literary sepulcher like
Isis Unveiled or some other form of esoteric scriptures! And the as
tonishing thing about these imported religions is that, although they
pay no tariff duty, which is a pity, they are held to be precious in
proportion to their and the scarcity of their converts. When you
have waded through these ponderous folios and have detected the
origin of most of their subject-matter, their feverish disciples are
away off to Central India in search of some new kind of Mahatmas!
I would prescribe for all imported Buddhists or Brahmins, all Ibsen-
ities, all worshipers of the crabbed crudities of Walt Whitm
good wholesome diet of Don Quixote.
Rev. John Snyder, a well-known liberal thinker, criticises Dr.
Talmage's recent sermon against suicide intended as an answer to
Ingersoll's article, a condensation of which was given in The Courier
last week. The critic says: "Perhaps Dr. Talmage is aB great a
sinner in respect to what may be called the orthodox use of the
Bible as any man in this Jay and generation. A recent sermon fur
nishes a striking case in this point. Mr. Talmage. wants to preach a
sermon against suicide. Of course according to the orthodox theory
his sermon must be based upon a specific Bible text. The whole
spirit of the Bible is opposed to self-murder. Unlike some of the
other ancient peoples, the Jews were not addicted to this sad crime.
Contrary to Mr. Talmage's conclusions, they were not deterred by
the fear of hell, but by the fear of God. For centuries the Jews had
no formulated belief in a future life. Not one of the great pruphetp,
for instance, ever draws a single moral sanction from the doctrine of
immorality. As far as we can see, their hope and fear and expecta
tions were confined to limits of this life. And yet the Jews were
probably the most moral people of antiquity. But to return to my
point. Mr. Talmage can not find in the Bible a single text that de
nounces suicide. So ho turns to the sixteenth chapter of the Book
of Acts. Paul and Silas have been miraculously released from their
prison bonds, and the affrighted jailer, thinking they had escaped,
draws his Bword to kill himself. Paul cries with a loud voice, 'Do
thyself no harm. Here Mr. Talmage's text stops short. But why
was the jailer to do himself no harm? Because suicide was a crime?
Not a word of this. But because, as the text line shows, 'Wo are all
here.' This reminds one of the preacher who wanted to preach
against the female custom of wearing the hair high on the head, and
selected for his text tho last four words of the sentence, Let those
upon tho housetop not come down! But there are more seriouB
charges to be brought agatnst Mr. Talmage's sermon on suicide. He
casts vicious slurs upon whole classes of people who reject his crude
system of theology, and who find a higher incentive to noble living
t,han the cowardly prudence which dreads eternal punishment. He
tays there never had been a case of Buicide where the operator was
not either demented, and, therefore, irresponsible, or an infidel. And
by the term infidel, he meanB, of course, according to orthodox
fashion, everybody who rejects his theological barbarities. Again
he says after Tom Paine's Age of Reason was published and widely
read, there was a marked increase of self-slaughter. This is another
indication of Mr. Talmage's dense and sinful ignorance of the Age of
Reason. Mr. Paine was a sincere and -enthusiastic believer in a
future life. Mr. Talmage believes that if a suicide can be arrested
on the very edge of the grave and urged to accept the merits of
Christ's atonement, that no matter what crimes he may have added
to self slaughter, he will be Buro of immediate paradise. Mr. Paine
could have put his sublime and rational faith into tho beautiful
words of Whittier:
I know not where his islands lift
Their fronded palms in air;
I only know I can not drift
Beyond his love and care.
Which mean equal justice and equal love for saints and sinners."
Newspaper correspondents disagree as to Mr. Cleveland's disease
some claiming that it is Bright's disaasD of the Kidneys, others in
sisting that it is a cancer, while a few hold out for dropsp, but the
larger part of the democratic party unite in diagnosing his case as
enlargement of the head.
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