Page:Counter-currents, Agnes Repplier, 1916.djvu/45

Cost of Modern Sentiment in the pleasures of conversation can any longer cherish these illusions. No one can fail to see that sentiment is the motor power which drives us to intemperate words and actions; which weakens our judgment, and destroys our sense of proportion. The current phraseology, the current criticisms, the current enthusiasms of the day, all betray an excess of emotionalism. I pick up a table of statistics, furnishing economic data, and this is what I read: "Case 3. Two children under five. Mother shortly expecting the supreme trial of womanhood." That is the way to write stories, and, possibly, sermons; but it is not the way to write reports. I pick up a newspaper, and learn that an Englishman visiting the United States has made the interesting announcement that he is a reincarnation of one of the Pharaohs, and that an attentive and credulous band of disciples are gathering wisdom from his lips. I pick up a very serious and very 29