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MUSINGS OF A PHOTOPLAY PHILOSOPHER
Since they introduced Motion Pictures into the asylums of Kentucky, Judge Garret announces that he has observed a marked improvement in the cases of both the mildly insane and of the incurables. And still the work goes on. Is there any limit to the good that the film can do?
Mr. Edwin Markham, who is perhaps the best known poet and man of letters in the world, was going over the prize-contest letters recently, when he came to one in which the writer used the word "jealousy." A look of impatience came over his face, and then he said to me something like this: "Here's a fine, scholarly letter which I am inclined to exclude because of this word jealousy. I shall not, however, for 1 shall lay aside my own prejudices. I never could see any justification for jealousy. What right has a man to be jealous of his wife, whatever she may do? What right has he to exercise dominion over her?" I would not like to match my humble opinion against that of so learned a philosopher as Mr. Markham, but I would suggest that, if the dictionary definition of jealousy is correct, viz. : "Anxious apprehension for fear of being displaced by a rival," jealousy is not only natural but quite proper. A wife has promised to love, honor and obey, and while there may be some question about the obedience, there is no doubt that she owes her husband loyalty, and if she gives cause for her husband to think that he is losing that, I think he should get very busy and find out. If her affections are transferred to another, it may be a question what the husband should do, — whether to give her up generously, as did Buskin to Millais, or whether he should seek to hold her to her contract. But, anyway, I think he has a right to be jealous.
The reason pipes are growing more popular is that it is getting too effeminate to smoke cigarettes.
We do not destroy a balky horse, or an unruly child, but we seek to train them. If there are, or have been, objectionable features to the Motion Pictures, why do some very good people want to destroy them altogether, without first inquiring whether their evils are removable? Would it not be just as logical to smash a piano merely because it is out of tune 1 Or to amputate the leg to cure a bunion ? For every evil in the world there is a remedy or there is not. If there is, let us find it. If there is not, let us endure it ; for, that which cannot be cured, must be endured. It would be useless to pass a law to stop the tides from rising and falling, and it would be equal folly to try to destroy a form of entertainment and education that is patronized by fifteen million persons daily.
Every person has some unreasoning aversion, or infatuation, that slams the door in the face of truth. Many there still be who refuse to recognize any merit or power for good in the Photoplay. None so blind as they who will not see.
It is easy to believe that which we hope for earnestly, and we discard easily the truth that gives us pain. All our opinions are weighted with selfinterest. How true it is that every cloud has a silver lining! Dark clouds make bright sunshine : rough roads make smooth destinations. Were there no cloud}^ days, we could not appreciate the sunny ones. Until we have suffered pain, we cannot know the luxury of health.