GOLDSMITH VERSUS MODERNS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 30, 5 February 1936, Page 6

GOLDSMITH VERSUS MODERNS.

"Goldsmith, indeed, was loose with women, but never wrote an indelicate line. It is a curious contrast, and it suggests that some £>f the writers who are so indelicate in their stories to-day may be most pure in their own lives." So writes "Cyrano" in Saturday's "Star." Knowing "Cyrano's" contempt f6r coarse writing, and his warm appreciation of genius, the charity of the second sentence quoted does not surprise me. But for tho life of me I cannot see the whyness of it! Like most men yvell bred, Goldsmith's thinking was clear as far as it went. Naturally, then, he saw a hundred reasons why he ought not to try to minimise his own responsibility for lasciviousness by publicly suggesting vile courses to others. If Goldsmith „were lost entirely to a sense of right and wrong, if he had put out the light of hope and had put on the cloak of irresponsibility, one could easily imagine his dipping his pen in the sewer. Consequently, why should we think it likely that modern writings reeking of the bilge of the sewer are the works of men of "most pure" living? Without some evidence in support the idea, seems preposterous. HUGH McHAIGH: