artificial deformities amidst the wealth of her
natural beauties! One hardly knows which to groan over most sadly,--the
tearing down of old monuments, the shelling of the Parthenon, the
overthrow of the pillared temples of Rome, and in a humbler way the
destruction of the old Hancock house, or the erection of monuments which
are to be a perpetual eyesore to ourselves and our descendants.

We got talking on the subject of realism, of which so much has been said
of late.

It seems to me, I said, that the great additions which have been made
by realism to the territory of literature consist largely in swampy,
malarious, ill-smelling patches of soil which had previously been left
to reptiles and vermin. It is perfectly easy to be original by violating
the laws of decency and the canons of good taste. The general consent of
civilized people was supposed to have banished certain subjects from
the conversation of well-bred people and the pages of respectable
literature. There is no subject, or hardly any, which may not be treated
of at the proper time, in the proper place, by the fitting person,
for the right kind of listener or reader. But when the poet or the
story-teller invades the province of the man of science, he is on
dangerous ground. I need say nothing of the blunders he is pretty sure
to make. The imaginative writer is after effects. The scientific man is
after truth. Science is decent, modest; does not try to startle, but
to instruct. The same scenes and objects which outrage every sense of
delicacy in the story teller's highly colored paragraphs can be read
without giving offence in the chaste language of the physiologist or the
physician.

There is a very celebrated novel, "Madame Bovary," the work of M.
Flaubert, which is noted for having been the subject of prosecution as
an immoral work. That it has a serious lesson there is no doubt, if
one will drink down to the bottom of the cup. But the honey of sensuous
description is spread so deeply over the surface of the goblet that
a large proportion of its readers never think of its holding anything
else. All the phases of unhallowed passion are described in full detail.
That is what the book is bought and read for, by the great majority of
its purchasers, as all but simpletons very well know. That is what makes
it sell and brought it into the courts of justice. This book is famous
for its realism; in fact, it is recognized as one of the earliest and
most brilli