REALITY AND SENTIMENT.
(To THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR...]
filB,—Here are two sides of a question. 1. A healthy sign of the times is the general ridicule shown towards things senti- mental and display of feeling. 2. In as far as it is a sign of the times, it is the reverse of healthy, for it shows an absence of the sense of reality and earnestness in life.
I suppose there is some truth in each of these opinions. I wish you would sift it out, Sir, if you have time and space, some day. I am a clergyman, and have a great sense of the whole- some effect of ridicule, when properly applied (it is applied to us Clergy, often enough, e.g., last week's Punch), but when it tends towards cynicism, it cannot be healthy, surely ? Mixing a good deal with the poor, I know there is much less of this laughter at show of feeling amongst them than among the upper classes, and I believe it is because their hard struggle for existence makes life more real to them,—not a thing to be either philosophised about, or to be brought with great labour into an artificial con- dition, but to be lived. I do not know if you will think the question worth raising in your columns.—I am, Sir, &c., G. D. M.
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