But perhaps the most noxious sign of the blight in the social atmosphere is the openly increasing laxity of morals, and the frankly disgraceful disregard of the marriage tie. Herein the British aristocracy take the lead as the choicest examples of the age. Whatever Europe or America may show in the way of godless and dissolute living, we are unhappily forced to realize that there are men in Great Britain, renowned for their historic names and exclusive positions, who are content to stand by, the tame witnesses of their own marital dishonour, accepting, with a cowardice too contemptible for horsewhipping, other men’s children as their own, all the time knowing them to be bastards. We have heard of a certain “nobleman” who,—to quote Holy Writ,—“neighed after” another man’s wife to such an extent, that to stop the noise, the obliging husband accepted £60,000, a trifling sum, which was duly handed over. Whether the gentleman who neighed, or the gentleman who paid, was the worst rascal, must be left to others to determine. It was all hushed up quite nicely,—and both parties are received “in the best society,” with even more attention than would be shown to them if they were clean and honest, instead of being soiled and disreputable. The portrait of the lady whose damaged virtue was plastered up for £60,000 is often seen in pictorials, with appended letterpress suitably describing her as a lily-white dove of sweet purity and peace. One blames the sinners in this sordid comedy less than the “fashionable” folk who tolerate and excuse their conduct. Sinners there are, and sinners there always will be,—modern Davids will always exist who seek after Bathsheba, and do their level best to get Uriah the Hittite comfortably out of the way,—but that they should be encouraged in their sins and commended for them, is quite another story. Apart from the pernicious influence they exercise on their own particular “set,” the example of conduct they give to the nation at large, not only arouses national contempt, but in some cases, where certain notable politicians are concerned, may breed national disaster.
With looseness of morals naturally comes looseness of conversation. The conversation of many of the Upper Ten, in England at least, shows a remarkable tendency towards repulsive subjects and objectionable details. It is becoming quite a common thing to hear men and women talking about their “Little Marys,” a phrase which, though invented by Mr. J. M. Barrie, is not without considerable vulgarity and offence. Before the brilliant Scottish novelist chose this title for a play dealing with the digestive apparatus, it would have done him no harm to pause and reflect that with a very large portion of the Christian world, namely the Roman Catholic, the name of Mary is held to be the most sacred of all names, second to none save that of the Divine Founder of the Faith. I am told on good authority that Americans,—especially the best of the American women,—have been amazed and more or less scandalized at the idea that any portion of the “cultured” British public should be found willing to attend a dramatic representation dealing with matters pertaining to the human stomach. I hope this report is true. My admiration for some American women is considerable, but it would go up several points higher if I were made quite sure that their objection to this form of theatrical enterprise was genuine, permanent, and unconquerable. I like Mr. Barrie very much, and his Scottish stories delight me as they delight everybody, but I want him to draw the line at the unbeautiful details of dyspepsia. People are already too fond of talking about the various diseases afflicting various parts of their bodies to need any spur in that way from the romantic drama. One of the most notorious women of the day has attained her doubtful celebrity partially by conversing about her own inner mechanism and other people’s inner mechanisms in a style which is not only “free,” but frankly disgusting. But,—“she is so amusing!” say the Smart Set,—“One cannot repeat her stories, of course—they go rather far!—but—but—you really ought to hear her tell them!” This kind of thing is on a par with certain lewd fiction lately advertised by certain enterprising publishers who announce—“You must have this book! The booksellers will not show it on their bookstalls. They say you ought NOT to read it. GET IT!”
All homage to the booksellers who draw the line at printed garbage! One must needs admire and respect them for refusing to take percentages on the sale of corrupt matter. For business is always business,—and when business men see that the tendency of a certain portion of the reading public is towards prurient literature, they might, were they less honourable and conscientious than they are, avail themselves financially of this morbid and depraved taste. Especially as there are a large number of self-called “stylists” who can always be relied upon to praise the indecent in literature. They call it “strong,” or “virile,” and reck nothing of the fact that the “strong” stench of it may poison previously healthy minds, and corrupt otherwise innocent souls. Prurient literature is always a never-failing accompaniment of social “blight.” The fancy for it arises when wholesome literary fare has become too simple for the diseased and capricious mental appetite, and when the ideal conceptions of great imaginative minds, such as the romances of Scott and Dickens, are voted “too long and boresome!—there’s really no time to read such stories nowadays!” No,—there is no time! There’s plenty of time to play Bridge though!
Poetry—the greatest of the arts—is neglected at the present day, because nobody will read it. Among the most highly “educated” persons, many can be met with who prattle glibly about Shakespeare, but who neither know the names of his plays nor have read a line of his work. With the decline of Poesy comes as a matter of course the decline of Sculpture, Painting, Architecture and Music. For Poesy is the parent stem from which all these arts have sprung. The proofs of their decline are visible enough amongst us to-day. Neither Great Britain, nor Europe, nor America, can show a really great Poet. England’s last great poet was Tennyson,—since his death we have had no other. Similarly there is no great sculptor, no great painter, no great novelist, no great architect, no great musician. I use the word “great,” of course, in its largest sense, in the sense wherein we speak of Michael Angelo, Raffaelle, or Beethoven. There are plenty of clever “sketchy” artists,—“impressionist” painters and fictionists, “rococo” sculptors, and melodious drawing-room song-writers,—but we wait in vain for a new “grand” opera, a nobly-inspired statue, a novel like “Guy Mannering,” or a Cathedral, such as the devout old monks designed in the intervals between prayer and praise. The beautiful and poetic ideals that made such work possible are, if not quite dead, slowly dying, under the influence of the “blight” which infects the social atmosphere,—the blight which is thick with Self and Sensuality,—which looms between man and his Maker, shutting out every hopeful glimpse of the sun of faith, whose life-giving rays invigorate the soul. And those who see it slowly darkening—those who have been and are students of history, and are thereby able to recognize its appearance, its meaning, and its mission, and who know the mischief wrought by the poison it exhales, will pray for a Storm!
“Come but the direst storm and stress that Fate
Can bring upon us in its darkest hour,
Then will the realm awake, however late,
From the warm sloth in which we yawn and cower,
And pass our sordid lives in greed, or mate
With animal delights in luxury’s bower;