Sermon on man that says other planets inhabited—nix. cause Bible says o of Xt trying to save THEM.
Tennyson, Elmer found more elevating than Browning. He liked “Maud”—she resembled Cleo, only not so friendly; and he delighted in the homicides and morality of “Idylls of the King.” He tried Fitzgerald’s Omar, which had been recommended by the literary set at Terwillinger, and he made a discovery which he thought of communicating through the press.
He had heard it said that Omar was non-religious, but when he read:
Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out by the same door wherein I went,
he perceived that in this quatrain Omar obviously meant that though teachers might do a whole lot of arguing, Omar himself stuck to his belief in Jesus.
In Dickens Elmer had a revelation.
He had not known that any literature published previous to the Saturday Evening Post could be thrilling. He did not care so much for the humor—it seemed to him that Mr. Dickens was vulgar and almost immoral when he got Pickwick drunk and caused Mantalini to contemplate suicide—but he loved the sentiment. When Paul Dombey died, Elmer could have wept; when Miss Nickleby protected her virtue against Sir Mulberry Hawk, Elmer would have liked to have been there, both as a parson and as an athlete, to save her from that accursed society man, so typical of his class in debauching youth and innocence.