Page:Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct.djvu/264

 egotistical delight in themselves, united to a barbarous rejoicing in bad language and abandoned morals. It does not mean this in decent every-day life, of course; but it does in books—such books as are praised by the Ishbosheth.

"I don't want one of your 'strong' books," said a customer at one of the circulating libraries the other day. "Give me something I can read to my wife without being ashamed." This puts the case in a nutshell. No clean-minded man can read the modern "strong" book praised by the Ishbosheth and feel quite safe, or even quite manly in his wife's presence. He will find himself before he knows it mumbling something about the gross and fleshly temptations of a deformed gentleman with short legs; or he will grow hot-faced and awkward over the narrative of a betrayed milkmaid who enters into all the precise details of her wrongs with a more than pernicious gusto. It is true that he will probably chance upon no worse or more revolting circumstances of human life than are dished up for the general Improvement of Public Morals in our halfpenny dailies; but he will realize, if he be a man of sense, that whereas the divorce court and police cases in the newspaper are very soon forgotten, the impression of a "strong" book, particularly if the "strong" parts are elaborately and excruciatingly insisted upon, lasts, and sometimes leaves tracks of indelible mischief on minds which, but for its loathsome influence, would have remained upright and innocent. Thought creates action. An idea is the mainspring of an epoch. Therefore the corrupters of thought are responsible for corrupt deeds in an